The Ornithologist and Oölogist. Vol. VIII No. 3, March 1883 / Birds: Their Nests and Eggs

The voices of our New England Buzzards are again ringing through their old haunts, and it may now be seasonable to review my local notes on their breeding habits last Spring. In short, then, I took 104 eggs. And from other nests in my circle of observation were taken or destroyed by farmers, hawk-hunters and others, sixty more eggs and young birds. So until a more favored breeding range is made known I shall claim this to be the home of the Buteos. A correspondent in Rochester writes that he thinks as many eggs can be taken yearly in that vicinity, but until this is shown to be true I shall not believe the distribution of species is so equal. If this article could be accompanied by a good physical map of Norwich and its environs, it would help greatly to support my claims. An irregular line drawn around the city just outside the suburbs would pass through the breeding places of sixteen pairs of Red-shouldered Hawks which I marked down the second week in April. Except a few hemlocks, the groves and strips of first growth are all deciduous and nearly all nut-bearing. The red squirrel, which is not so relentlessly shot down as his gray cousin, is amazingly plenty in these suburban woods. While skating yesterday on Yantic cove, within the city limits, I saw seven squirrels playing in the small patch above Christ’s church on the river bank. Every one who has climbed to nests of young Buteos nearly fledged, must have been astonished at the great quantity of these young rodents, supplied by the parent birds. In one nest of Red-tailed Hawks I have seen portions of nine red squirrels, and from another have counted out on the ground seven entire bodies. A game bird or chicken now and then, but red squirrels for every day bill-of-fare. Mousing, Master Buteo will go. And frogging, too, for I have several times surprised him in muddy sloughs in the woods, and field collectors often are called to notice the black mud on fresh Hawk’s eggs. Given then a great food supply and the species that follow it will be abundant. Over the grove of second growths to the left of Love Lane, last Spring, I saw a pair of Red-shouldered Hawks hovering for days in succession. I knew they were not breeding in the patch, as they had not done so in former years, and there were but three old Crow’s nests very low down. But to be very sure I examined the grove repeatedly with care and found it to be alive with red squirrels. In one apple-tree hole was a litter of six; in the butt of an oak were five with eyes unopened, and the conspicuous outside nests were many. A Barred Owl clung to the top of a white birch with one claw, and was tearing away at a squirrel’s new domed nest with the other claw. The Hawks had their nest with two young in the swamp beyond, and this grove was their handy larder, and very noisy they were over their daily grace before meat.