This Buzzard, which we learn from Wilson is spread over the United States, is the most common raptorial bird in Jamaica. Permanent, not migratory, we see it all the year round, sailing deliberately in wide circles over the pastures and ruinates, now near the ground, but presently soaring into the upper air, each circle higher and higher till the bird is lost in the glare of a tropical sky. It is common to see two individuals of this species in company, sailing each in its own circle, but intersecting the other; and as they thus fly, they utter from time to time a sudden energetic cry, “pinyee.”
The frequency of this bird’s depredations on the poultry of the homestead, has given it a provincial appellation. In the stomach of one, examined by Wilson, he found, however, the remains of frogs and lizards. Its courage is not proportioned to its size or arms. Not long ago, near Bluefields, two of these Hawks swooped together upon a white barn-door cock, who defended himself so vigorously and so successfully as to keep them both at bay for some time, until, help coming, both the marauders were shot.
Some observations of Mr. Hill’s, on the flight of the birds of prey, elicited by a few remarks in a letter from a friend, appeared to me so interesting, that he kindly placed both in my hands, for the advantage of the present work; and I here present them to my readers.
Samuel R. Ricketts, Esq., to Richard Hill, Esq.
“With regard to Hawks, I have had many opportunities of observing their habits here, as I have a large common, and a flock of turkeys. They perform successive circular movements in the air, and their pounce is done by closing the wings upwards. They appear to be falling, when doing so. A chicken was taken here some days ago from the roof of the house, having fallen from the talons of a Hawk I was in pursuit of. The South American Hawks fly higher, and in larger circles, than those of Europe:—why, I cannot tell, but such is the fact. I speak from personal observation. Our Hawk has a peculiar note in very dry weather, and is then said by the negroes to be “calling the rain.”
Richard Hill, Esq., in Reply.
“Your observation about the widened circuit which the Hawks of this country, and those of South America generally, take when surveying their prey, has led me to trouble you with the following remarks on the flight of raptorial birds.
“Raptorial birds that take their quarry on the ground, as we very well know, before they seize their prey, attentively survey it; keeping it in view by sailing round and round it. In these circumgyratory evolutions they leisurely gaze down on their intended victim, and then descend circle by circle, to pounce on it with a swoop.
“The attention of birds in ordinary or direct flight is immediately fixed on the objects before them. The swiftness with which they shoot through the air makes every visual impression indistinct and evanescent on either side of them. If they take wing for a distance, they rise at once high, that they may command a view of the place which they intend to visit; and if they proceed to an object that is near, they elevate themselves to such a height only as is necessary to give them a clear and direct course to where they are speeding. The circular flight of raptorial birds, is therefore the result of their directing their vision to the centre of the gyrations they describe in examining their prey, or descending upon their victims.
“The eye of all birds is large and prominent. The prominence widens the field of vision. The width of the circle which the several kinds of raptorial birds variously describe, I think, as a rule, will be found to be determined by the size of the head and position of the eyes, or increased with the rotundity of the head of the bird. The direct vision being altered with the increase of space between the eyes, Hawks of the Buzzard kind, which have large and round heads, may be expected to wheel in wide circles; the expanded space being required, that they may keep the vision of their wide-apart eyes direct upon the objects beneath them.
“Owls fly differently. They search for their prey, as if they were pursuing it with the vigilance of the hound. They skim along the surface of the earth, glide among trees, explore avenues, sweep round, rise and fall, wheel short, and dart down, but never sail in circles. Their wide staring eyes are placed in what may be called their face, being right forward in front, and have scarcely any field of vision laterally. They therefore hunt with a forward and downward gaze, like dogs over a field. The globe of the eye of these nocturnal raptores, being immoveably fixed in the socket by a strong elastic cartilaginous case, in the form of a truncated cone, they have to turn their heads to view objects out of the path of flight, and their neck is so adapted for this exertion, that they can with ease turn round the head in almost a complete circle, without moving the body.”
I have never met with the nest of this Hawk; nor has Wilson given us any information concerning it; but a young friend, very conversant with out-of-door natural history, informs me that he lately knew of one, a large mass near the top of an immense cotton-tree into which he observed the old birds frequently go. It was at Content, in the parish of St. Elizabeth. The gigantic dimensions assumed by the Ceiba, which strike a stranger with astonishment, combined with the smoothness of the trunk, rendered its summit perfectly inaccessible, and prevented particular examination. At length he witnessed the emergence of two young ones, and their first essay at flight. He assures me that he distinctly saw the parent bird, after the first young one had flown a little way, and was beginning to flutter downward,—he saw the mother, for the mother surely it was,—fly beneath it, and present her back and wings for its support. He cannot say that the young actually rested on, or even touched the parent;—perhaps its confidence returned on seeing support so near, so that it managed to reach a dry tree; when the other little one, invited by the parent, tried its infant wings in like manner. This touching manifestation of parental solicitude is used by the Holy Spirit in the Song of Moses, to illustrate the tenderness of love with which Jehovah led his people Israel about, and cared for them in the wilderness. “As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings; so the Lord alone did lead him, and there was no strange God with him.”—(Deut. xxxii. 12.—See also Exod. xix. 4.)