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efthfj OP t1_je433ow wrote

Reply to comment by verbalddos in This giant hawk hanging around the Kennedy Center on Sunday by efthfj

I was wondering. He was pretty chill. I got within about 10 feet of him. He’s like “I’m a badass and you don’t scare me a bit!”

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verbalddos t1_je4uj4y wrote

Sadly it may have west Nile virus or another illness, birds of prey typically are not that calm and rarely perch that low when they have other options.

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BasedDog69 t1_je4zjj7 wrote

I remember seeing a red tailed hawk last summer chilling on a bench near the monuments. I also thought that was odd behavior. I know they are pretty territorial and that is roughly the same area. Any chance that it’s the same hawk that has some weird tendencies or is it more likely that there is something that is affecting multiple hawks in the area? (Presuming most illnesses would have killed off the one I saw in early summer which I don’t know enough about diseases to know)

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verbalddos t1_je59h8w wrote

It's not the same hawk as they molt the juvenile feathers and get the famous red tail after the first year. West Nile affects a lot of birds in the area it's transmitted by mosquitoes. Falconers and the DNR sometimes work together to vaccinate wild birds each year.

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BasedDog69 t1_je5dvdp wrote

Ahhh, I think that makes sense.

Birds are so neat. Thank you for the education on this!

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