An Unfortunate Death at the Pond

 We don;t know how or why this could have happened, but a magnificent red-tailed hawk somehow got entangled in our heron lines at the pond, and his feet were wrapped in the lines while still holding onto a low branch of an alder, head in the water.  It obviously drowned.

Chris found it hanging and came to get me.  As hard as we tried, we could not come up with any scenario as to how this could have happened.  If the feet weren't locked to the branch it may have made more sense... but the line was roped around the feet like a cattle roper does, and it would have had to happen after it landed.  But then why would it have landed there in the first place.  We guess it may have tried to swoop in to grab a fish, got caught in a line, then grabbed the branch realizing it was tangled and struggled until it made it even worse. We will never know.  It took us a while to get down and cut the feet free from the branch so we could cut the line and free the body to remove it. 

Very sad indeed and one of those tragic things that will likely never happy again.  These raptors do not have good night vision, they only hunt in daylight, so the fish swoop is the only explanation we can come up with.  We haven't see one of these red-tails around our place before, thought they are on Bowen.  They really are beautiful, big birds as you can see below.  Our birder friend suspects this was a juvenile.