Date April 30, 2025
Location Rio Grand Village, Big Bend National Park, TX
Confession time.
It is well known that Common Black Hawks have a nest at this location, down from the visitor center a ways. Signs near the nest prohibit getting too near. We did respect those signs and stayed on the road nearby. We saw the nest, but no hawks. So I pulled out my bird app and played the call note, hoping to attract their attention.
Before my clip had ended, one swooped up to the tree where the nest was and started responding. I stopped my phone immediately. But he sat there calling for about 10 more minutes.
Basically, it's a bad idea to "tape" birds this way because if it's done enough, it may drive them away from the nest because they think there are too many competitors. There's a famous example of an owl (can't remember the species, but rare) at Cape May that didn't stay long because hordes of birders came there playing its call hoping to see it. I concluded that a brief use of this technique would not be a problem. But yeah, definitely should be careful about doing it.
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