Movie Birds!

  Never count on Hollywood to give truthful accounts of anything!  No, this is not a political rant, I do not do those.  This is a critter rant, for whatever it is worth.  Probably not much.  For the longest time, I thought eagles made the high-pitched scream that we all heard on the old western movies.  Let a cowboy be lost in the desert with an eagle off in the distance and you would always hear a distinctive screech.  Yep...that was an eagle!  Nope...that might have been an eagle filmed but that was not an eagle screaming.  As a kid, I never thought much about it.  To me, an eagle could very well be screaming its head off at that cowboy....I was more interested in the horse!  I was all about horses and never followed a plot of any movie but, instead, focused solely on the horse!  I fretted over the horse stumbling about with no water but never worried that the cowboy was being circled by vultures or screamed at by eagles.

  Now as an adult living on the Bayou and watching every critter that calls the place home, I can distinguish an eagle call with the best.  To me, the eagles sound a lot like an old rusty wheel.  I have yet to hear one scream.  Maybe they do but not to my knowledge.  That screaming is done by a hawk.  Almost every raptor that appears in the movies has a voice over by a red-tailed hawk.  This bird has that signature scream down pat!  It is a red-tailed hawk scream that is famous!  After all these years of believing otherwise, I feel sort of cheated!  Not really.  Maybe the hawk should feel cheated.

  Recently, there have been more red-tailed hawks flying about the Bayou.  These birds are huge!   They hunt by soaring high above the ground and can spot a mouse at about 100 feet.  Their dive is graceful with feet extended and they rarely miss their mark.  The hawks will take anything they can overpower and have been known to pick up unattended pets occasionally.   Back on the farm, it was quite common to lose a fat hen or baby pig to a red-tailed hawk.  

  Even with their reputation of being ruthless hunters, it was nice to see three hawks soaring overhead a few days ago.  Hearing them scream brought a smile as I thought of how Hollywood misled us all by using a hawk instead of an eagle.  Deceptive!  Hollywood...how dare you!!! Now, about that horse.  Did it make it through the desert?