Nothing really special about this morning but something was brewing high in the sky to the south. A violent storm was approaching and soon a female purple martin would be flying for her life.
My purple martins had endured two days of cold rainy weather but did just fine. They were flying around the colony and socializing this morning. The sunshine was probably the key to this activity and seemed to energize them.
Right now, there may be 50+ martins in my colony but it is impossible to count them so this is just an educated guess. Bob my next door neighbor may have a dozen martins in his colony.
At around 10:00 am I was on my front porch observing the martins when I noticed they had become rather anxious and some bolted and climbed high over my colony. Several martins quickly entered their nests. Something was disturbing them and I wondered if the Grim Reaper was perhaps on the prowl and coming for a visit.
Suddenly my bluebird pair which nests in a bird house about 50 feet from my martin colony began to emit their bird-eating hawk alarm vocalization. This vocalization sounds like a high pitch whistle that is emitted in long bursts. I have heard this vocalization many times and it often means the Grim Reaper has arrived!
More martins now fled including a pair from one of my gourd racks and began to climb at about a 45 degree angle toward the north and Bob’s colony. The female martin was in the lead and the male followed.
Then both martins began to fly erratically and continued to climb at a high rate of speed. I now knew something was very wrong as other martins were emitting blood curdling screams of terror!
The female martin quickly changed her flying position and abruptly banked sharply downward. I didn’t see what the male had done. Both martins were about 200 feet high up.
And out of nowhere came the Grim Reaper which was ABOVE the martins and they had been climbing directly into its dive! This is one of the worst positions a martin can be in when a bird-eating Accipiter hawk is ABOVE and coming straight for you!
In an incredible series of banking actions the female martin dived toward the ground above Bob’s colony and the female sharp-shinned hawk was right on her tail, matching every turn! The hawk’s short rounded wings look like mallets and I could see for just a second the long square tail open up and functioning as a rudder! These physical characteristics and the size told the Grim Reaper was a female sharp-shinned hawk.
I just knew the martin was doomed as the hawk was not giving up and forcing the martin lower toward the ground in a spiraling pressure tactic. The martin and hawk were moving at incredible speeds and looked like they were trapped inside some kind of spinning vortex! This action will keep the hawk above the martin and pressures the martin closer and closer toward ground. Then the hawk has a better chance of grabbing the martin and pinning it to the ground.
But just when I thought the hawk would snatch the martin, a miracle happened. The martin was at the periphery of Bob’s colony and not far from one of my martin decoys on about a six foot tall garden stake. The hawk for some reason grabbed the “slow” martin decoy and the female martin pulled straight up into an almost 90 degree angle and literally shot like a rocket into the sky!
The hawk gave that decoy a good work over but plastic is not that edible or easy to grip! She hovered a few seconds around it and then landed on the ground underneath the decoy. Since I was concerned that maybe some of Bob’s martins may decide to come out and be vulnerable, I rushed toward the hawk and she flew off into a nearby woodlot.
This attack by a sharp-shinned hawk on a martin was rather spectacular. The attack began about 200 feet off the ground and completely in the open. This hawk knew how to hunt martins higher up by keeping up a pressure on the selected martin and forcing the martin down toward the ground. The closer to the ground the better the chance the hawk can make a kill.
Martins are almost invincible higher up in the sky when being attacked by Accipiter hawks as long as the martins are aware of the hawks, have room to maneuver and can eventually gain altitude. In this attack the hawk was ABOVE the martin and forcing her lower down so the hawk had the advantage. I have only seen a few high altitude attacks by Accipiter hawks on martins and all were unsuccessful. Most of their attacks are ambush hunts around the martin colony, often in the early mornings or evenings in dim light conditions.
I have seen one other attack by a Cooper’s hawk that dived on my martin colony, selected a fleeing male martin, but then turned from the martin to a martin decoy and the real martin escaped. It was most satisfying to see the martin escape and the hawk grabbing the martin decoy!
Here are two photos of the martin decoy that may have saved the real martin’s life. One photo shows the decoy on the garden stake. This decoy is about 30 feet from Bob’s colony and completely out in the open. The other photo shows a close-up of the back of the decoy revealing scratch marks from the hawk’s talons! Many of my martin decoys have their “attack wounds”! I would encourage folks to try a few martin and dove decoys around their martin colonies to help deflect Accipiter hawks and merlins (small migrant falcons in our area) from the real martins. These decoys have truly helped save my martins a number of times. The martin decoys have attracted Cooper’s and sharp-shinned hawks and merlins. Only the larger Cooper’s hawks have attacked the mourning dove decoys that I have seen.
