Don’t mess with a mommy Harris’s hawk…they can be very intimidating
I accidentally encroached on the nest of a Harris’s hawk. The first thing I noticed was her hovering quite close to me and repeating a sharp four chirp call I had not heard from them before. I assumed that she has lunch in her sights and I stopped to watch her hunt, it is fascinating. Well as it turns out, she had me in her sights and stopping there so close to her nest was NOT what she wanted. She called more loudly. She moved a little closer. She flew in a large sweeping circle and swooped down at me. That is when I figured out I was the target and would be best if I put some distance between us. I backed up about 50 feet and she returned to her nest. Cool I thought, I hurried on down the trail until I felt I was a non-threatening distance away and stopped to look back one more time. Big mistake. She was really pissed when I stopped again. She came up off that nest screaming her call at me and swooped and hovered over my head. I started walking but she kept right over me. I ended up running with my hands up over my head knowing all the while that she was very unlikely to attack anything so much larger than she but at the same time certain that she would. She won. I got far away and never looked back. Thank goodness there was no one around with a video camera.