Friends?

I don't think so. Emily called me out from the office to ID a raptor on the phone pole. In the cloudy light she wondered if it was a Swallow-tailed Kite. Turned out to be a Southern sub-species of a Red-shouldered Hawk. And it was being mobbed by the nesting Northern Mockingbirds.



The hawk put up with the assault for quite sometime as the Mockingbirds took turns swooping at its back and head. Finally, the hawk began to call.



A few seconds later, the hawk retreated to the woods across the stream and the Mockingbirds headed back to their nest and the morning was quiet again.