Atlanta Hawks (and Buzzards)

[wiebke]

Had an interesting wildlife encounter this afternoon here in Atlanta!

Background: A friend and I had gone biking down to the Oakland City / West End area in southwest Atlanta, wanting to check out a big cemetery (here it is on Google Maps) we'd heard had a large number of Jewish graves. We have a thing for cemeteries and particularly like Jewish

Comments

[portsalut]

I'm not an expert on silhouettes but the typical "eagle cry" most often heard on tv and movies is from a red tailed hawk. sadly, bald eagles don't make very cool cries and get dubbed over!

[wiebke]

Yeah, it was a hawk cry. I watch a lot of nature shows and they do it right :)

What's funny is that there are prey birds right in my own neighborhood in Atlanta, but they're peregrine falcons, which live on local skyscrapers. I'm not sure they make noise but you notice them when they come down at like 100 mph on pigeons!

[abbzug]

Based on the large numbers of birds you saw, it's most likely that these were vultures, perhaps of more than one variety. They congregate in huge groups like you've described (hawks generally do not). I live in SW Virginia, in a small town with one of the largest turkey vulture and black vulture populations in the US, and this behavior sounds a lot like what I've seen with the vultures here. Here, both types can be seen flying together in enormous numbers.

[krispyz]

I will second that. Red-tails tend to be territorial. It's possible those first two were a male and female pair, but if any more had shown up, it's unlikely for them to ride the thermals together. This is much more vulture behaviors, though I know a lot about turkey vultures and very little about black vultures (I live in the mid-west).