this is bird note a mated pair of sharp-shinned hawks swift bird-catching predators perched side by side slender dashing gray and rufus hawks

the male is j-sized just over ten inches from the top of his head to the tip of his tail. The female, however,

stands a head taller and weighs almost twice as much. This seems odd. In most birds, if the sex

is very at all in size, the male is larger. But with many hawks and falcons, the pattern is reversed,

and female birds of prey are most notably bigger than males among hawk species that hunt

very agile prey. Why is this so? Perhaps the female sharp-shinned hawk's larger size

ensures that she may safely dominate the male through courtship

and nesting, with a mate who is, after all, a highly aggressive bird hunter. The smaller male

will tend to hunt smaller prey. The female will take somewhat larger prey, so together they can

tap a wider range of resources, including this unfortunate Douglas squirrel.

Despite his smaller size, the dapper male is a good provider. Early in nesting, while the female concentrates on incubating the eggs and then brooding the hatchlings, the male does

most of the hunting.

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