The sidewalk between my house and the school bus stop looks like the bird equivalent of the Civil War's Antietam battlefield... bodies strewn everywhere. My 14-year-old daughter walking beside me doesn't notice, even after I tell her to look at what the hawks have done.
Tuesday there was a loud crash when a bird slammed into the floor-to-ceiling glass windows at the back of our house. Dumb bird, again? Since a couple of summers ago, I'd figured out the birds weren't so dumb, just panicked. After one such window slam, I discovered a big old hawk standing in the middle of the backyard eyeing its prey, which was lying dazed too close to the house for the hawk to finish the job. Tuesday I looked around and the hawk was sitting on the wall at the edge of our yard, pondering her next move. She could see me in the window and after we eyed each other for a few minutes, the hawk flew off. Maybe I should have let nature take it's course, but instead I went outside and moved a lawn chair to a spot near the dove to give it cover if the hawk returned. Ordinarily the doves fly off when I go into the backyard. This dove was still too dazed or panicked to move. It just watched while I positioned the chair. The dove was gone when I returned from walking through the bird battlefield to meet my daughter at the bus stop after school.
This spring I've helped intensify the war between the birds... not deliberately. I like having the doves and finches around and put out a feeder, a very clever one that defeats squirrels and roof rats, and only lets small song birds like house finches and lark sparrows feed. It's a good size feeder and I thought I could fill it up and not have to mess with it again for a couple of weeks. The house finches tore through the bird seed in two days. They don't just eat. They poke, pick, dig, shake their heads like crazy and the bird seed flies everywhere. This makes the doves happy since they eat the seed that ends up on the ground ... and the doves bring the hawks.
So now I have a moral dilemma. How do I deescalate the war between the birds. If I stop feeding the house finches, there won't be as many doves around for the hawks to kill. I could buy myself a .22 rifle and shoot the hawks -- which would make the Phoenix PD and my neighbors really, really unhappy. The neighbors and the PD aside, I have of too much experience defending "doves" in days gone by and I know that unless you're totally committed to hawk genocide, even artillery far more powerful than a .22 won't stop the hawks. Besides I like the hawks... they're beautiful in a fearsome way ... I just wish they'd take it easy on the doves.
Then there are the grackles. With the hawks around there aren't any. The grackles rough up the doves in their own way. A couple of grackles will corner a dove and start pecking its shoulders. If the dove doesn't get away immediately, the grackles keeping pecking until the doves head comes off. What's the point? The grackles don't eat the doves. They just kill them. The hawks are hunting for food. The grackles are just thugs and the hawks keep the thugs out of the neighborhood.
Then there are the grackles. With the hawks around there aren't any. The grackles rough up the doves in their own way. A couple of grackles will corner a dove and start pecking its shoulders. If the dove doesn't get away immediately, the grackles keeping pecking until the doves head comes off. What's the point? The grackles don't eat the doves. They just kill them. The hawks are hunting for food. The grackles are just thugs and the hawks keep the thugs out of the neighborhood.
Bottom line: good luck trying to save the world. After years and years of trying, I still haven't figured out how to save the doves.
