{"id":777,"date":"2012-06-05T19:59:55","date_gmt":"2012-06-05T19:59:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/watkinson\/?p=777"},"modified":"2012-06-05T19:59:55","modified_gmt":"2012-06-05T19:59:55","slug":"the-stanley-hawk-audubon-bird-of-the-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/watkinson\/2012\/06\/05\/the-stanley-hawk-audubon-bird-of-the-week\/","title":{"rendered":"The Stanley Hawk (Audubon “bird of the week”)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>“On the 5th of December 1809, I made a drawing of the male of this species, in its matured state of colouring, at Louisville, in Kentucky, where I then resided . . . [I offer here, however] to your inspection a male, probably two years old, and an adult female . . . I have honoured the species with the name of the President of the Linnean Society of London, the Right Honourable Lord Stanley<\/a>, a nobleman whose continued kindness to me I am happy in acknowledging . . .<\/p>\n

The daring exploits performed by the Stanley Hawk, which have taken place in my presence, are very numerous, and I shall relate one or two of them.This marauder frequently attacks birds far superior to itself in weight, and sometimes possessed of courage equal to its own.\u00a0 As I was one morning observing the motions of some Parakeets\u00a0 . . . I heard a Cock crowing not far from me, and in sight of a farm-house.\u00a0 The Stanley Hawk the next moment flew past me, and so close that I might have touched it with the barrel of my gun, had I been prepared.\u00a0 Its wings struck with extraordinary rapidity, and its tail appeared as if closed.\u00a0 Not more than a few seconds elapsed before I heard the cackling of the Hens, and the war-cry of the Cock, and at the same time observed the Hawk rising, as if without effort, a few yards in the air, and again falling towards the ground with the rapidity of lightning.\u00a0 I proceeded to the spot, and found the Hawk grappled to the body of the Cock, both tumbling over and over, and paying no attention to me as I approached.\u00a0 Desirous of seeing the result, I remained still, until perceiving that the Hawk had given a fatal squeeze to the brave Cock, I ran to secure the former; but the marauder had kept a hawk’s eye upon me, and, disengaging himself, rose in the air in full confidence.\u00a0 The next moment I pulled a trigger, and he fell dead to the ground.\u00a0 It proved a young male, such as you see, kind reader, represented in the Plate, pursuing a lovely Blue-bird nearly exhausted.”<\/p>\n

\u2013J. J. Audubon, Ornithological Biography<\/em>, I (1831), 186-188 [excerpted].<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“On the 5th of December 1809, I made a drawing of the male of this species, in its matured state of colouring, at Louisville, in Kentucky, where I then resided . . . [I offer here, however] to your inspection a male, probably two years old, and an adult female . . . I have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":122,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[20,21],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/watkinson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/watkinson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/watkinson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/watkinson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/122"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/watkinson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=777"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/watkinson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":782,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/watkinson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777\/revisions\/782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/watkinson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/watkinson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/watkinson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}