The Hoodies

May 7





I was too wiped to go out again yesterday.. combination of heat and too little sleep, but caught up some since then. That might have something to do with staying up on funtrivia and watching birds on the other side of the world via a webcam at Mount Sutro, California. Yes I'm a bird nut.

At any rate, as I sat here at the p.c . last night with my window wide open to the night air as usual, (mosquito screening on the windows of course) I could hear *stone curlews* calling from the valley in the dark. These are fascinating birds- they look like large plover but are as camouflaged as owls on the hillside which makes them very difficult to see when they're not moving. They are often active at night, hunting bugs on the ground and calling their eerie warbling calls to advertise their territories.


Today we went down to the stream-bed at about 6 p.m. and the place was hopping with bird activity. *Great tits* (Parus major - like chickadees and quite colourful) were calling and singing everywhere, parents with their newly fledged chicks were flitting around in the abandonned orchard. I noticed one parent busy cleaning some kind of long dark larva while the offspring chirped insistently around. Blackbirds (Turdus merula) with their evocative songs were also busy with breeding. Collared doves were all around with their 'cu-coo-cuk' calls and here and there their smaller and more reclusive cousins, the turtle doves purred their 'tribble' like purr from deep inside eucalyptus and pine canopies. We spotted a pair of Syrian woodpeckers working low on pine trunks, each on a separate tree. We knew they were a pair since the male, further away, had a red nape patch and they never stayed far apart.

Another tall eucalyptus hides a *hobby* nest in its canopy. The hobby, Falco subbuteo is an attractive falcon which winters in Africa and breeds here. We were delighted to catch another sighting today.. watched the parents wheel and hunt up and down the valley for a while, to and from their nest, heard the sharp 'ko ko ko ko ko!!' call and expressed our usual admiration. Falcons are amongst my favourite birds for their grace and prowess.

Now the local crows seem to believe they own the valley. The jays (middle eastern race of European Jay) have claimed the trees themselves and the Hoodies have claimed the airspace above, the hills around and the gaps between the trees. These are large stroppy crows with greyish to brownish bodies and black wings and head, hence the name. Hooded crows would be more correct.. a local subspecies of Corvus corone, but 'hoodies' is good enough for us and will be their name in this blog from here on. There are platoons of them all over the city, they really do think they own the place. Alfred Hitchcock should meet them.

I've never seen them squabble with the Jays, and they don't bother the hobbies either but they do take great exception to any raptors passing through. Any migrating eagle or buzzard that dares alight on one of the pines, the hoodies seem to take as a personal affront and will harry and harass them till they move out of the area or manage to intimidate the crows back.


At the beginning of our walk we saw a beautiful graceful small eagle type, I'd put it as one of the Buteo genus right off... (the complexities of bird of prey identification in this region need a blog to themselves) .. landed on one of the pines in the north end of the forest. Right away the Hoodies moved in to correct this transgression. One tried to divebomb the visitor from above while another snuck up from below. Soon the raptor took off to the south quite quickly and no doubt not in a great mood. They have to put up with this kind of treatment from the hoodies all the time. A few days ago we watched more hoodies try to take on a larger eagle higher in the air.. the eagle pecked back at them and they backed off. We wanted to cheer for the eagle. Those hoodies can really be insufferable ;)