Saw something strange Need Answers (Hawk Pro's)

[sourland]

Definately the wrong time of year for mating behavior. Highly unusual for buzzards to "fight" with hawks. Their feet are not designed for attacking or fighting. In the Spring I once saw a pair of hawks attack a Great Horned owl while she was on her nest. It was a territorial thing. They wanted that nest site, and I had inadvertantly flushed the male owl.

 

[MMPoultryFarms]

I wouldnt call the buzzards actions fighting I would call it more swooping in and running away. its the hawks when they collided that feathers went everywhere. the most violence was from hawk to hawk. the buzzards more or less just soared above and below flying in 2 times that I know of for a charge then retreating. the smaller hawks appeared to be getting mauled by the song birds and what have you of the wheat pastures. its the 2 large redtails that were fighting. my fear is thats 4 hawks and 2 buzzards in the same place same time? Global warming LOL?

 

[centrarchid]

Sounds suspicious. Did you have a clear angle to see if anyone was carrying something or have opportunity to scrutenize feathers?

 

[desertdarlene]

It sounds strange, but it does sound like the two adult red-tails were in a battle. The buzzards may have just been messing around, not actually being aggressive, much in the way that crows often mess around with other birds. Otherwise, I wouldn't know why a buzzard would attack a hawk like that unless it was purposely trying to knock it to the ground to kill it.

Where I live, buzzards "take note" of where hawks fly and attack and will show up in an area a few minutes after a hawk tries an attack. I even had one buzzard flush out a rabbit for a Coopers, perhaps because it knew there would be left overs.