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Hawks lose in collision with people

Development is moving into red-shouldered hawk territory. When the birds defend their nests, they can lose them.

By CHANDRA BROADWATER and DAN DEWITT
Published April 14, 2006

[Orlando Sentinel]

Bird advocate Lynda White holds a red-shouldered hawk chick taken Wednesday from a Hernando County nest.

SPRING HILL - Permit in hand, federal agents approached the back yard of a house on a quiet cul-de-sac.

As both red-shouldered hawk parents shrieked Wednesday, the agents climbed the pine tree and pulled out a fuzzy, white chick, estimated to be 10 days old.

Then they tore the nest from the tree and scattered it, hoping to dissuade the return of the hawks, which had threatened residents of the home. On Thursday, the hawks circled the area looking for the nest and the chick.

The Audubon Center took in the half-pound chick - named No. 123 - and will raise it until it is old enough to be released into the wild.

But bird proponents say the Spring Hill case highlights a growing problem between the hawks, known to stealthily dive-bomb people walking near their nests, and people moving into areas that used to be animal-only habitats.

The incident at the home of Joe Dantonio, his wife and 10-year-old son is the second time in two weeks that Central Florida hawks have encroached on human neighbors and lost. Late last month, a federal agent in Orlando legally killed two nesting red-shouldered hawks with a shotgun at a golf resort.

"We're stealing their habitat, so they have a right to complain, it seems to me," said Bev Hansen, an avid Hernando County bird breeder.

When Dantonio, who lives just off Forest Oaks Boulevard, first called for help, he was advised to try a few techniques known to keep the birds away. Walk around the nest with an umbrella. Wear a hat painted with eyes on top. Wear a hat, period.

Or, just stay away from the nest until the birds leave, a matter of weeks. But it was his back yard, and the birds persisted.

In Spring Hill, agents from the U.S. Department of Agriculture responded without hurting the birds. In Orlando, an Agriculture Department agent shot a nesting pair after run-ins with those teeing off at the exclusive Villas of Grand Cypress Golf Resort.

Agents blew the birds out of a tree and left the nest alone, said Lynda White of the Audubon Center for Birds of Prey in Maitland. She said some people heard peeping coming out of the nest, and she suspects that a chick or two might have died.

Usually, officials try to move red-shouldered hawk nests to better accommodate everyone, she said.

"Killing is always the last resort," White said. "I think that the other situation was severely mishandled. At least nobody was killed this time. The baby has a good chance of surviving here with us."

White was one of the first people Dantonio talked to after one of the hawks swooped down and scraped the back of his head a little more than a week ago.

When the birds didn't stop, Dantonio called the Agriculture Department, which was issued a permit to remove the birds by the U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife Services.

The orphaned chick is the 123rd bird of prey brought in this year. Out of superstition, birds that will be released to the wild aren't named, White said.

"But he sure is a cute little guy," she said.

The federally protected red-shouldered hawks have reddish-brown and white feathers. They are one of the most common hawk species in the continental United States, according to The Birds of North American Online, compiled by the Cornell University Lab of Ornithology and the American Ornithologists' Union.

While the birds prefer to live in forests, they live wherever they can, the Web site stated.

That means the birds have not sought out subdivisions but have held their ground against encroaching development, said Bev Hansen, the Hernando bird breeder.

"They live right in neighborhoods," she said. "As we develop more and more rapidly, as we put our homes where they are, we're starting to get more people-wildlife interactions."

The attacks on residents living near nests are a natural reaction to intrusion, she said.

The danger for people starts with the late-winter breeding season, according to another county birder, Mike Liberton.

He said the birds become more aggressive after chicks hatch in the spring and remain highly protective for six weeks, while the offspring remain in nests.

Removing nests is not only disruptive but probably pointless because all the high-quality habitat is already filled, said Kristin Wood, director of the state Fish and Wildlife Commission's Chinsegut Nature Center near Brooksville.

"They just can't relocate," Wood said. "They are running out of places to go."

Chandra Broadwater can be reached at cbroadwater@sptimes.com or 352 848-1432. Dan DeWitt can be reached at dewitt@sptimes.com or (352) 754-6116.

[Last modified April 14, 2006, 02:34:33]