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Kill 'em - eat 'em

Wing_Z

Wing_Z

Charter Member 2011
A Great Aviation Story

This came from a gent who runs a 2000 acre corn farm up around Barron, WI, not far from Oshkosh. He used to fly F-4Es and F-16s for the Guard and participated in the first Gulf War.

I went out to plant corn for a bit to finish a field before tomorrow morning and witnessed The Great Battle. A golden eagle - big *******, with about a six foot wingspan - flew right in front of the tractor. It was being chased by three crows that were continually dive bombing it and pecking at it. The crows do this because the eagles rob their nests when they find them.

At any rate, the eagle banked hard right in one evasive maneuver, then landed in the field about 100 feet from the tractor. This eagle stood about 3 feet tall. The crows all landed too, and took up positions around the eagle at 120 degrees apart, but kept their distance at about 20 feet from the big bird. The eagle would take a couple steps towards one of the crows and they'd hop backwards and forward to keep their distance. Then the reinforcement showed up.

I happened to spot the eagle's mate hurtling down out of the sky at what appeared to be approximately Mach 1.5. Just before impact the eagle on the ground took flight, (obviously a coordinated tactic; probably pre-briefed) and the three crows which were watching the grounded eagle, also took flight thinking they were going to get in some more pecking on the big bird. The first crow being targeted by the diving eagle never stood a snowball's chance in hell. There was a mid-air explosion of black feathers and that crow was done. The diving eagle then banked hard left in what had to be a 9G climbing turn, using the energy it had accumulated in the dive, and hit crow #2 less than two seconds later. Another crow dead.

The grounded eagle, which was now airborne and had an altitude advantage on the remaining crow, which was streaking eastward in full burner, made a short dive then banked hard right when the escaping crow tried to evade the hit. It didn't work - crow #3 bit the dust at about 20 feet AGL.

This aerial battle was better than any air show I've been to, including the Warbirds show at Oshkosh. The two eagles ripped the crows apart and ate them on the ground, and as I got closer and closer working my way across the field, I passed within 20 feet of one of them as it ate its catch. It stopped and looked at me as I went by and you could see in the look of that bird that it knew who's Boss Of The Sky. What a beautiful bird!

I loved it. Not only did they kill their enemy, they ate them.

One of the best Fighter Pilot stories I've seen in a long time...

There are no noble wars-- Only noble warriors
 
Great story wing Z.

I witnessed a bird of prey exhibition flight as well when I was driving the combine harvester one hot summers day.

I saw a small bird in a stoop. It turned out to be a Hobby, a small falcon which migrate to Britain in the summer. It eats insects and small birds, which it takes on the wing.

The male does the hunting and passes the prey to the female who takes it back to the nest.

The Hobby swooped down very fast, caught the swallow, transfered the prey to his beak, all in flight. Out of nowhere, the female appeared, the male transfered the prey from beak to talons, did a half roll under the female and passed the prey to her. The two remained clinging together, holding the prey between them and proceeded to do a few rolls, spiral dives and stall turns, all the time holding 'hands'.

It was a fabulous display of airmanship (airbirdship?) Man may imitate nature, but will never beat it.
 
Amazing ... I've seen Perigrin do that with pigeons ... :pop4: and feathers all over the place!
 
Thanks for sharing. Terrific story. He painted the incident so vividly it's easy to visualize in one's mind's eye.............
 
I once watched a fully mature male Redtail Hawk being chased by three crows over a corn field. The Hawk would swoop and dive, bank and climb, and the crows stayed right on his tail. Then, suddenly, the Hawk did this really neat wing spread manuever that allowed it to shed air speed like crazy...resulting in the 6 o'clock crow over shooting the Hawk...and as the crow was passing over the Hawk's back, the Hawk went fully inverted and snatched that crow right out of his loafers. Yep, that variable thrust vectoring stuff sure comes in handy during a dog fight.

On a sort of related tip, but not overly so....I once watched a 2 hour documentary on this group of big brained people who were trying to figure out how birds fly...how they do all those instant changes of direction and all that. They used a lot of pigeons, had them fly through plexiglass mazes with movable walls and filmed the pigeons changing directions using a ultra high speed camera. After 3 years of study, at the cost of a couple million dollars....this group of big brain people were no closer to being able to explain how birds fly like they do.

OBIO
 
Good story, did I mention that I hate crows? They're Satan's imps with black feathers.
 
Great story! Lots of raptors in our area, and seeing them begin a dive will always stop me in my tracks, to watch.

Had one come between the neighbor's house and ours at what seemed like 200 mph, and catch something next door, as I was mowing the lawn. Don't know what it caught, but the next I saw it was tearing it apart in a tree next door. Just awesom flying abilities.

Mike
 
My mom once had a cat, one of those fancy flat faced ones that people primp and pamper and spend way too much money on...well, it had kittens...and one of those kittens was a Seal Point Himasomethingother...a pretty rare color variety was we were told would fetch some pretty big bucks. Well, Mom let the kittens out in the yard to romp in the sun...and a Hawk swooped down and grabbed that Seal Point whatyacallit and carried it away....

My mom commenced to hollering and screaming and telling me to grab my gun...So I run into the living room, ready to confront a gang of escaped convicts or something along those lines..and she told me that a Hawk had flown off with the Seal Point kitten and that I was to go find that Hawk, shoot it, and rescue the kitten. I told her that shooting the Hawk was illegal, that the kitten was dead before she had even begun screaming and hollering, and that the Hawk was simply doing what Hawks do...catch and eat small furry animals.

OBIO
 
i was on a construction job once that was loaded with mice. a sparrow hawk moved into the building and fixed the mouse problem in short order.
i used to be amazed watching it fly though the webbing in the jr beams at about 50 mph, zigging and zagging never hitting anything.
 
I once saw a cat stalking a wounded crow. The crow was running/hopping away, and the cat was closing fast. Easy kill right? Suddenly the wounded crow’s buddies started making strafing runs at the kitty, over and over. They harassed the cat so bad that poor fluffy had to abandon the chase and run away. That was interesting.
 
Oh those crows! They love to harass the bald eagles and great horned owls around here. I saw about 40 or 50 bugging a snowy owl last oct. As a birder one of the first things you learn is; if you hear a murder of crows making a lot of noise, find them and you will find an owl, eagle, large hawk, etc.
 
Quite a well written story! Could be somewhat humbling scene to watch, by a human who secretly wishes to be a winged creature -


:engel016:
 
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