麻豆淫院

A University of Tennessee researcher documented an immature Cooper's hawk using vehicle traffic and pedestrian signal patterns as concealment during hunting behavior at a suburban intersection.

Perched near idling cars during long red lights, the hawk launched its approach only after auditory pedestrian signals predicted an extended signal phase, resulting in a longer queue of vehicles.

Urban birds face complex and challenging environments shaped by constant human activity and infrastructure. Moving vehicles represent both hazards and opportunities that some birds exploit for feeding or strategic advantage. Crows drop hard-shelled food onto roads for cars to crush and goshawks in Hamburg slip behind buildings to hide their approach.

Accipiter hawks are known for combining ambush tactics with rapid chases, requiring an understanding of prey movement patterns and the ability to plan ahead. Some urban-dwelling hawks use rooftops, glass windows, and narrow alleys to trap prey. Eurasian species have been observed using vehicles as visual cover during hunting approaches.

Cooper's hawks began to utilize cities as habitat in the 1970s, becoming highly successful winter residents. Only one novel hunting behavior specifically associated with urban infrastructure, hunting near artificial lights, had previously been reported in this species.

In the study, "Street smarts: a remarkable adaptation in a city-wintering raptor," in Frontiers in Ethology, the researcher conducted systematic observations to document how an immature Cooper's hawk timed attacks in sync with pedestrian signal acoustics and traffic flow.

A single immature Cooper's hawk was the sole subject of the study. Fieldwork centered on a suburban intersection in West Orange, New Jersey, where 12 hours of dawn surveillance across 18 winter weekdays captured six hunting forays.

Researcher Vladimir Dinets watched the intersection from a parked car each clear weekday morning between 07:30 and 09:00, logging the hawk's movements, traffic-light phases, car queues, and the beeping pedestrian indicator that extended red lights from 30 to 90 seconds.

Bread crumbs left by residents outside a nearby home (house #2) drew house sparrows, mourning doves, and starlings, creating an inviting morning gathering location for the flocks, and an opportunistic hunting ground for the hawk.

Six attacks unfolded only when the pedestrian cue sounded, signaling a longer redlight, a window amounting to 3.75% of observation time. Probability estimates confirmed the timing as statistically unlikely to be chance (P 鈮� 0.000053). Adding to the improbability of chance, the hawk was never observed hunting on weekends when traffic was light.

The hawk always approached from the same position and direction, beginning from a perch near house #1, appearing when the walk sign began to chime. Once cars stretched to house #8 on the block, the raptor would descend, skimming just a few feet along the southern sidewalk, with the line of cars blocking the view between predator and prey.

Upon reaching house #1, the hawk pivoted 90 degrees, slipping between vehicle bumpers as it crossed the street, ambushing its prey as they unsuspectingly pecked away at breadcrumbs. At least two confirmed kills resulted from the six attacks鈥攁 sparrow and a mourning dove.

A similar hunting sequence was observed the following winter, possibly involving the same hawk, though this observation was not included in the analysis.

Dinets concludes that the hawk's behavior required a detailed mental map of the environment and an ability to associate auditory pedestrian cues with changes in traffic flow. Such behavior reflects an advanced cognitive feat and problem-solving abilities not previously documented in Cooper's hawks.

Dinets proposes that this intelligence is unlikely a product of urban adaptation, but rather a pre-existing trait that enables the hawk to function in an unfamiliar and complex wild setting.

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