I have seen a red tailed hawk being repeatedly dive bombed by an American Kestrel. Really neat to watch!
Nathan

Smaller hawks often harrass larger hawks, especially if the larger ones enter their territory.

Our bird hospital received an injured Red-tail a number of years ago, and the person who brought us the bird witnessed the action: The Red-tail (during migration) was foolish enough to fly through the territory of resident Peregrines in NYC. One of the Peregrines hit the Red-tail; the fleeing hawk hit a building, fell into the street and was run over by a car.

Luckily - amazingly - the hawk was just shocky and bruised, and we released it after a few weeks of R & R.

Another story I heard was from a hawk bander, who was at his station on fall day, waiting for a bird to come to his lure. He saw a Golden eagle in the distance; then a Red-tail flew up to the eagle to harrass it. The Golden wheeled over onto her side, grabbed the hawk, and that was the end of the hawk.

wow awesome story Elly!!!

oh wow i love these stories any others? i have witnesssed a great horned owl being attacked by a red tail and escaped

Last year a Redtail was sitting in one of the tall trees and another RT came along and basically pushed her out of the tree as it was her territory... I also saw last week a juvi RT sitting on a Light post and a mature one came up and chased him off, was very nice about the whole ordeal...Claire

I've watched a Cooper's go after red-tails when the young Coop's were getting ready to fledge.

Also watched a red-tail harass a bald eagle for about 15 minutes, rising from ground level to so high in the sky that the hawk was just about invisible before the bald took off.

I saw a good one recently. A White-tailed Kite got my attention while hovering over a field. I watched it pull its wings up, and drop straignt down. Instead of coming up with a vole, it flushed up a Red-shouldered Hawk ! The two then climbed for altitude, in tight circles, with the
Kite getting the upper hand. The Kite attacked in several steep dives, screaming. The Hawk apparently had just eaten, and was unprepared for this, opted to leave the area with only a few feathers ruffed.

Twice, I have seen ravens harassing ospreys out of their territory in the White Mountains of AZ.

It seems to take three ravens to drive off one osprey. They fly above it to prevent it from gaining enough altitude to stoop and gain air speed. They take turns diving to harass the osprey, but the osprey will do a roll and grab for the raven as it comes close (osprey is briefly on its back, with those astounding fish grabbers grabbing for the raven).

We had an encounter that made the local newspapers a couple of years ago. Some wildlife people were releasing a rehabilitated bald eagle after it had recovered from some injuries. The wildlife people decided to make a big production out of it so they invited local reporters. The local tv stations even sent cameramen to film the release.

The wildlife people picked the wrong place to release the eagle. It was an open spot along the Patuxent River. Unfortunately it was territory claimed by a pair of ospreys. As the eagle flew over the river the ospreys attacked the eagle. The ospreys drove the eagle into the river. The wildlife people had to go out in boats to rescue the eagle before it drowned to death. It was all caught on film.

Richard