So you think your a good hunter....

[Phil]

Next to our horse paddock we have a small area of woodland. Living in one of the older Sycamore trees is a mature male Tawney Owl. I've seen him once or twice over the past few months, but last night I saw him do what he does best... hunt.
It was getting dark and last night I was lazyely looking out over the fields at the horses grazing when I saw him drop out of this tree. Without a single wing beat, he glided over our bottom field, swooped down, and rose into the air clutching a full grown male hare. In complete silence and with minimal beating of his wings he was back in his favorite tree with his meal. The whole episode lasted less than 30 seconds.
...so you think your a good hunter....we're all amatures compaired to "old Tawney"

[Bill Carlsen]

...the challenge of hunting with a bow and arrow brings me closer to being like your Tawney owl. I like how that feels. It just feels like the natural thing to do. Barry and Gene Wensel have done a respectable job in their DVD called Primal Dreams. It does a really good job in capturing that special "wildness" that our ancestors had in order to survive and bring it foward to today and underscores that wild connection that we, here, strive to attain. :)

[swampy]

I suspect that if our very existance was dependent on our ability to hunt we would be much better than Mr owl. Very cool thing to witness though glad you got to see it.

Mr owl waits in ambush kinda like a tree stand hunter and I,m sure he/she doesn,t get every bunny it goes after.

IMO the cats are the best hunters.....imagine haveing the stealth and cunning of a cat.......now thats hunting!!

[Phil]

Bill..
..although this must count as one one of the most astonishing things I've ever seen... it also, at the time, seemed the most natural thing in the world.

[Bob Gordon]

Phil...I do a lot of fishing on the local lakes and some of them have a lot of osprey's in the trees. It's pretty awesome to see a large osprey come to a hover in the air, make a 300 ft crash dive into the water and come up with a fish. When they leave the water they always turn the fish's head into the direction of flight, original streamlineing at it's best. Also have seen many huge bald eagles swoop down and nail a large fish close to the surface. As fragile as most birds seem to be with light weight bones and small neck bones it's hard to imagine a big bird like a osprey going from 60 mph or more in a dive to zero in just a foot or so of water, awsome sight for sure...warf

[Ray Cover]

Bob,

I have watched that too. Eagles more than Osprey (there are just more of them around here). You are right it is an awesome sight to see one of those big birds hit the water so hard and come back up loaded with a nice carp.

The sheer speed of their dive is amazing. The timing is unbeleavable. They go from head first to talons under with perfect timing. I have seen them miss a fish. But they hit at last 85% of the time.

Its also pretty fun to watch an eagle bust a duck out of mid air.

Ray

[Bob Gordon]

Ray, you right, it's something to see how those big raptors can nail something flying as fast as a duck. I have seen a couple times a falcon nail a duck at about 150 mph, just like a Sidewinder guided missle, nothing but a big puff of feathers in the air and one dead bird headed for the ground, sure glad those birds don't weigh a hundred pounds, wouldn't be safe to leave the house!!...lol...warf

[Cato]

Not to mention the fact that each of these birds has a pretty fair set of eyes. Wouldn't it be nice to see that keenly?

[Ray Cover]

Cato,
Can you imagine what our hundred yard groups would look like if we could?
:shooting:

[Bob Gordon]

They also come with eight pretty sharp "broadheads" that can do some pretty serious work. Wonder what the KE is when your a duck hit at 150 mph by a falcon? Ouch....warf

[tuffshot]

I like watching the litle hawks like the Kessler, or Kestryl (sp) hawk they will just hover over an area in a wide open field for a long time and when the time is right they just drop on their prey. I have also watched them by the highways just hovering waiting on the right moment. They are :cool: little birds..

[Jeff Durnell]

I don't know what avian predator's hit/miss ratio is, but check this out. Last year I got into a mess of squirrels one morning. I've never had such a good day squirrel hunting. Anyhow, there was a redtail hawk and a coopers hawk working the same croud. I only saw the coopers hawk make two attempts, then he either got lucky somewhere out of sight, or moved on. But I watched the redtail try over, and over, and over again and never connect. It went on for some time and I was really enjoying the show.

It was funny, at one point a little later in the morning he made an aerial assult on a gray squirrel very near me, which evaded him, and the hawk just stood there on the ground staring at the squirrel which was only a few feet away now staring back at him from the log that he hopped up on. Then it was like the squirrel knew the hawk was little threat once he was grounded, cuz he simply hopped down off the other side of the log and went back about his business. After a moment, the hawk flew up onto a limb right in front of me and screamed several times like they do. He looked really frustrated.

Eventually, I cleaned my squirrels and hunted up the ridge further. When I came back, the redtail was on the remains and when he saw me coming, he snatched them up, with a handful of leaves too, and flew up into a tall oak to pick through them. I guess they're scavengers too.

[Curtiss Cardinal]

I know raptors and owls and cats are romanticized in their hunting prowess; but wild dogs are actually the most successful hunters(next to man) on the planet. Most animal predators average about like big league base ball platers and are only successful 1/3 of the time. Wolves, dingos, African wild dogs are successfull 50% of the time. The reason for their success? Can you say "dogged determination?" Can you say "teamwork?" Solo hunters are the least successful of all averaging between 25 and 33%. African lions that are also team hunters are less successfull than dogs because they will give up the chase if too much energy is expended, the point of diminshing returns. Further African lions steal as many hyena kills as hunt for themselves if not more.Suprizingly of solo hunters there is a tie between coyotes and the common house cat, feral or other ways. However I agree that watching a bird of prey is a thing of primordial beauty.

[Cato]

Hey Curtiss, maybe you and I need to team up on these Whitetails?

Good to have you out here. Jack up Michael and get him out here would ya?

Cato (Mitchell)

[Curtiss Cardinal]

Cato, Up here in Indiana or down there in Mississippi?
I am up for it either way.

:bow2: :jesus: :amen:

[Larry Hatfield]

i was packing salt in the blm and heard sheep and a herder going nuts. a golden eagle had grabbed a lamb and was trying to fly off with it.
the lamb was too heavy and the eagle dropped him from about twenty feet up. the talons had penetrated the abdomen so the herder made camp meat with it.
that was a really awesome sight.