These birds fill a niche left open by the Peregrine Falcon. The Maricopa County courthouse has had falcon boxes for years, they do pigeon patrol downtown. In Arizona they call pigeons rock doves.

The guy who trained me at the Milwaukee Health Department called pigeons "Flying rats!"
Spirochetes from the dust of dry pigeon poop can KILL you.
Hey, falcons!
It's LUNCH TIME!!

Fantastic pictures Larry, especially the Peregrine. I didn't realise that they were indigenous to he US. We have them nesting close by to where i live - an absolutely stunning bird to see in action...... unless you are a pigeon of course.

i got a couple of hawks that hang around here ,, red tails.. one is huge ,,,probably 5 feet across. looks like a dang 747 floating around

We have Red Tails nesting in our woods but stay out of the yard. Wish they would take care of the squirrels in the yard. Plenty of Bald Eagles and a few Ospreys around, nest in the local marsh and hunt the farm fields. Fishermen toss trash fish on the bank for them.

No pictures?  
Bald eagles use the pigeons like a drive thru right above my house, 4 with one downstairs circling and "tenderizing" them
We hear the golden eagles have retaken some of the cliffs in Scotland

a squirrel is hard to catch
I’ve seen a red tail catch a raven for lunch

I’ve seen an orchard full of crows harassing a red tail

Keep your cameras close Migration might be “unusual” this year, the hurricanes and unrest among the humans

CNN had a story in'82 where  I lived  , a flock of Chimney Swifts up North in Oregon in November would come every evening and tornado down this guys chimney at 5pm, thousands right in downtown Newberg, people brought lawn chairs

finally found out the Roadruuner drinks behind the Honda dealership car wash

then one time a flock of ducks got their feet stuck to the ice on my pond and dang if they didn't fly off with  the whole rural body of water - that's a banjo song I'm workin on

We had this fine fellow in the spring. I thought he was a Red-tail who'd hit the gym, but he's actually a Red-shouldered Hawk.

A Red Shouldered is very cool, kinda shy, I've never seen one.

I had a red tailed hawk perched on a limb over my small pond early this week. He was checking out my collection of koi and goldfish. Fortunately I had the fall netting strung up to keep the leaves out. In over 20 years, I've only lost one fish to a hawk.

A guitar player from New Mexico described how he trained raptors. He described how dangerous life was for young hawks. He trained raptors, and when mature enough, released the birds. So individuals who do this improve the raptor population. Before reading this post, I had thought the opposite would be true. Acquiring accurate knowledge can change opinions.

...to Wpg. and back this past week.  At a couple of road kills there was a bald eagle or two, along with the usual cadre of ravens, and a magpie or two.  As a kid, we never saw bald eagles in our part of MB.  I like seeing them around ... I'm no biologist, but I figure diversity is good.

Helix - who is migrating - people or birds ? Lots of for sale signs on the gulf coast. Hard to find an area that doesn't have hurricanes, fires, or tornadoes. The mountains in northern New York and northern New England would probably work out. But if a person moves there, they better bring along thermal underwear.

We have bald eagles, featured on the Decorah Eagle Cam, which you can Google up that follows the nesting and birth of the young each year. The nests are about four miles south of me, and I see one over the house every so often. What we also have is a huge flock of turkey buzzards, who sometimes roost in the trees a few dozen yards west of our house, and can be seen soaring over the area every day.

The salmon are almost done spawning on the Sooke river. There's lots of gulls. ravens. crows & bald eagles flying around here. Twice I've had fish guts dropped in my yard! 

Two jets went over today. That's been a rare bird these days.

We get woodland rainfirest birds & seabirds about 2 miles away. I love to see these little guys like clockwork!

Buffleheads!

https://www.vicnews.com/community/bufflehead-return-to-greater-victoria-waterways/

I saw a documentary the showed wolves eating parts of the migrating salmon. They apparently discovered that eating certain parts of the fish could be fatal. When existing is hardest, creatures have to be more clever. That has been discovered when studying creature behavior.

A Northern Flicker on my balcony yesterday. Couldn’t get a pic of him before he vamoosed.

No a great pic as I’ve just taken it with the iPad very carefully not to scare it off, but as I type I have a woodpecker on my nuts!

Since the geese have largely gone south, for the past couple of weeks birdwatching close-by has been pretty limited.... sparrows and a few ravens.  However, I did get a pic of a couple of birds (?) on the back deck railing a few summers ago:

quote:

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Originally posted by chuckv97

A Northern Flicker on my balcony yesterday. Couldn’t get a pic of him before he vamoosed.

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And for your additional boid trivia :

"The northern flicker (Colaptes auratus) or common flicker is a medium-sized bird of the woodpecker family. It is native to most of North America, parts of Central America, Cuba, and the Cayman Islands, and is one of the few woodpecker species that migrate. Over 100 common names for the northern flicker are known, including yellowhammer (not to be confused with the Eurasian yellowhammer), clape, gaffer woodpecker, harry-wicket^{[citation needed]}, heigh-ho, wake-up, walk-up, wick-up, yarrup, and gawker bird. Many of these names derive from attempts to imitate some of its calls."

We used to have sapsuckers here. They drilled holes in all the alder trees & killed our lilac tree! The one in the picture is the same & so are the holes in the bark. We noticed humming birds feeding on the sap too!

https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Red-breasted_Sapsucker/overview

Red Shouldered looks beautiful when flying, when he spreads his wings gosh he thinks he owns the world!

People are portable and migrate all the time. How did we get out of Africa? We walked.

There is this one scene in Winged Migration where the snow geese are using the frozen river as a flyway and 3 elders come around the corner first followed in solemn efficient frozen flight by the youngsters.

There is a Red-Tailed Hawk male who nests over the front door of one of the brownstone apartment buildings across from Central Park in New York. He's had 5 wives. He goes out during migration and attracts his mate(s). That, my friends, is flying.

I want to mention the Verio, a tiny bird who scolds me when I'm out in the desert on my mtn. bike. They showed me, male and female how they play Knock knock with the termites at the base of a Saguaro cactus. They didn't even fly away.

A tiny tug, the USS Verio stepped in and heroically towed the damaged and listing Yorktown away from the Battle of Midway. That, my friends, is customer service.

no pic... but, Evening Grosbecks were back in my yard after a 10 year hiatus!! The Rose-breasted Grosbecks always show up..but not the Evening Gs... nice to see them again. The other usual birds have been around..Titmice, Chicadee, Red and White Nuthatch, Downy, Hairy WP, Red breasted WP, House Finch, Gold Finch, Cardinals, and Squirrels out the ying-yang!! Carolina Wren, Junco also.

That’s what I meant about migration being different this year
I’m glad to hear they are back
They do something important, don’t know what

We had the adolescent Grackle swallow a caterpillar off the eggplant, but the wrong way, so he was trying to hack it up
While his dad went over and grabbed another catpiddler and smacked it on the garden box and showed the youngster how to do it right.