30 December 07

Northern Harrier

Immature northern harrier: pen and ink A thud, a horrible sound, against the window: the huge bird settled, stunned, into the pile of leaves. Sat there gathering its wits. Then, presently, it began to dismember something in its talons we hadn’t spotted earlier.

The hapless something turned out to be a pocket gopher: love it when the native predator catches the native prey that just happens to be eating my native poppies. Go Harriers.

Posted by at 09:37 PM in Bird of the Day | Link |

  1. Whenever I see a reference to a Harrier I think of the jump jets flown by the RAF. Do these birds fly like that too?


    — Katherine    2. January 2008, 05:25    Link

  2. Yes: they cruise low over the ground, working working incessantly. They don’t actually hover, but the shape is sort of similar too.


    — Pica    2. January 2008, 08:28    Link

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