Pat Gaines actually felt sorry for the red-tailed hawks at Bonny Lake State Park this summer.
Despite their aggressive reputation, loud screams and fierce, piercing looks, the hawks at the park, north of Burlington and just west of the Kansas border, were being bullied when Gaines saw them.
“I’ve never seen red-tails harassed so much. They all seemed hoarse. I felt kind of sorry for them,” Gaines said of the sight of dozens of little birds divebombing the hawks.
The hawks were minding their own business, Gaines recalled. But the western kingbirds at the park were upset.
Highly territorial, the kingbirds felt the hawks were intruding on their space, Gaines said.
Gaines had focused his camera on one red-tailed hawk because the bird had been screaming. As he followed the hawk across the sky, a kingbird divebombed the hawk.
The hawk, which is not a predator of the kingbird, flew as fast as it could away from the kingbird. For a moment it appeared the kingbird had stopped attacking. But then it began the pursuit again and, to Gaines’ amazement, landed on the hapless hawk’s back.
“He rode the hawk for 25 yards. The hawk was not trying to fight back — it was just trying to get out of there,” he said.
As the kingbird rode the hawk bareback, it pecked away at the hawk’s head.
“They (the kingbirds) are not afraid of anything,” Gaines said. “Until this happened, I had never seen one perch on a hawk’s back.”
Gaines last month posted his photo on the Colorado Birder website, where he is a frequent contributor.
Howard Pankratz, The Denver Post
