Hawk v. Squirrel on Campus

Even though hawks are chasing squirrels across the Knox College campus around dinnertime, chances are good that squirrel isn't on the menu, according to Knox's resident bird expert.

"They appear to be juveniles," said James Mountjoy, associate professor of biology, when asked recently about hawks that were heard calling, and photographed chasing a squirrel through a grove of trees, near Knox's Ford Center for the Fine Arts.

"The calls are most likely juveniles begging for food from their parents," said Mountjoy. "There could be other things going on, such as play or sibling conflict."

There were at least two hawks in the air and two squirrels. One squirrel was safely ensconced in a tree, the other scampered about on the ground, just one jump ahead of a pursuing hawk. Squirrels are everyday fixtures on a campus where students give them snacks from the cafeteria.

Cooper's Hawks in the Midwest generally prey on small birds, Mountjoy said. "My own observations, the only Cooper's Hawks that go after squirrels have been the young, who aren't quite sure what they're doing."

One of the lead organizers of the local Audubon Society Christmas Bird Count, Mountjoy detailed hawk life on campus in a video interview in 2015.

Perhaps the hawks were complaining: in addition to eating nuts, seeds, hand-outs from students and left-overs scavenged from trash cans, squirrels are also predators, according to another Knox biologist, Stuart Allison, Watson Bartlett Professor of Biology. "Squirrels will eat eggs and nestlings, almost anything that's available to them."

Above and below: hawk chases squirrel, which escapes to a tree on campus; more Cooper's Hawks at Knox on Flickr...