This is kinda a bird watching experiance today. At lunch I got to see some very strange behavior involving birds and powert lines at lunch.

Sitting in my truck outside a job site, and heard some weird bird noises, angry blackbirds. Very familiar sound seeing that I know where the blackbird nest is because they occassionaly attack me as I walk by thier nest which is on the building next door to the site. So I look up expecting to see one of the workers on the site being pecked in the head.... This time I look up and a GIANT red-tailed hawk is floating by thier nest. This bird is huge! 3-4' wing-span. Then I notice that the blackbirds are doing something very smart for them, considering the have a brain the size of a pea. They fly out to the powerlines... This is where it gets wierd. They stay between the (what I understand to be) 4 or 12KV lines. (The 2 voltages in the area) Originally, I thought they were trying to avoid this large hunting bird by staying in the congestion of the lines. But the LV, and cable/tel lines would have been much easier to do that in. As this chase drawn out for a while, I realized they were purposely trying to lure this hawk between the HV phases, trying to kill this bird by getting him between the phases. Either way, it was very smart, but I am left with the feeling that the blackbirds and the hawk understood what the consequences were. As the hawk was very comfortable flying between the LV or tel/cable lines, but completely avoided going between the HV, which could easily, due to it's span, turn it into a fireball. i.e. the fate of the California Condor.

Has anyone ever seen or heard of such a thing?


Mark Heller
"Well - I oughta....." -Jackie Gleason