A (bird) Murder Mystery Solved.
Only birders in the building.
Burder – Crimes Witnessed on Big Pine Key: Final Episode
It’s now been over a month since the last episode. Several, non-bird related, incidents took me away from my investigations into the bird murder, the Burder, I witnessed with my father from the top balcony of his house. (Hopefully you will see the results of those non-bird related things soon.)
Since It’s been a while. And I’m way too lazy to skim those old articles and then copy the format I’d originally applied to this series. So, let’s do a recap, which will catch you up, provide new information, and allow me to wrap this all up at once.
My father and I had been tracking what we thought was a single hawk seen flying around the area near his house. Our sightings included swift flybys, a couple near misses, my dad seeing the bird far more often than me, and that same bird apparently flying away just because I was there. These sightings built up until one afternoon, the bird in question swooped down from dad’s roof, and landed on a tree in front of his house.
Bird on a wire
It was then that we discovered that there must be more than one bird, because the bird perched (and believing itself hidden) on the tree outside, was a juvenile, too young to have been flying in the previous months. Our 1 bird, a broad-wing hawk, was actually a family, who were obviously nesting nearby.
In the meantime, there were signs of something sinister in the background, a persistent kettle of turkey vultures, their numbers in the hundreds flying overhead. A paranoid flock of roosters, (and some hens and chicks) in the grocery store parking lot, a spilling of white downy feathers in the driveway. Birds going missing, and finally an obvious burder.
A month or two after the broad wing baby perched on the poinciana outside, it was back, across the street, carrying a seagull in its talons. That seagull, was, dead. The burder, unwitnessed, had already occurred. In the aftermath, the broad-wing hawk was plucking him bare in broad daylight.
I was able to capture this on (digital) film, and record the plucking, until the alleged-burderer became aware of the scrutiny and flew off, victim still dangling from its claws. Since then, there have been more incidence, another case of free flung feathers drifting on the wind, (another potential victim?) The Chickens have taken to roosting in the trees, (for protection from the burderer?) A turkey vulture was found dead on a nearby street, (a car accident, or the elimination of a witness?) And the Key Deer are losing their antlers. (the experts tell me this is seasonal, but I don’t trust them.)
And now… The conclusion
I have been seeing this case differently since proper identification revealed that we had a family on our hands, not just a single bird-murderer. The primary culprit was a juvenile broad-wing. It’s family must be in the area. Since then, I’ve seen them. I’ve witnessed at least one of the adult broad-wings perched on the powerlines around the block, and their offspring, the parents do not seem intimidated by me. I’ve been able to bike close, and snap pictures of them (at odd angles because I’m on my bike) and they don’t even move. (Perhaps they are trying to intimidate me into silence.)
A quick search for evidence of the first burder, (the drifting feathers,) yielded nothing. The search for the remains of the second victim was called off due to hazardous environment. (There are poisonwood trees in the lot across the road, and I’m not navigating those, or the subsequent rash, for the sake of a joke article.) So the case had stalled out.
But, perhaps it was time for a different angle. Recently, my father witnessed a near-attack (and probable attempted burder) while at the grocery story. Chicks had just hatched from eggs hidden amongst the topiary near the Winn-Dixie, and hens were shepherding them amongst the parking lot to the shade of parked cars and the sustenance provided by dropped treats, when one of the parental broad-wing hawks caused a flutter.
It swooped down, aiming, perhaps for one of the chicks, and as the hens took up a defensive line, so to did tourists and locals, shooing the bird away until the chickens could find safety. Suddenly, we have an explanation for why the hawks might go after seagulls instead. The seagulls nest atop the winn-dixie, safe from the tires of traffic, but un sheltered by the whims of passing tourists.
We have a why?
Why white feathers, why a seagull as the second victim? – Because they are easier to hunt.
The How is obvious. Broad-wing hawks are carnivores. Predators of the sky, and as taken from Wikipedia “To catch their prey, broad-winged hawks watch from low branches, hiding in the foliage, until a target is spotted. From their roost they do a short, fast glide to capture the prey. They give special attention to preparing their food for consumption, skinning frogs and snakes and plucking prey birds' feathers. Most small mammals, though, are eaten whole. They rarely drink water and are able to survive solely with the water present in their prey.” Broad-winged hawk - Wikipedia
So, more than likely, the seagulls were stalked, and then hunted by the parents, a skill they taught to their nestling.
This M.O. also links them to the method we witnessed in the second (known) victim. The broad-winged baby was preparing his food for dinner, by plucking.
The who, can now be linked. Too. The frequent sightings of the broad-winged family, the obvious modus operandi, and the simple fact that one victim was witnessed in the claws of the juvenile, while another was plucked months before it would have been ready to hunt. These signs also point to a family of broad-winged hawks. A family of burderers, who
When…. A family of burderers, who nested on Big Pine Key in summer or early fall, raised a nestling, and taught it to hunt throughout the winter. To sustain a family, we must then assume that their victim count is much higher than the two crimes witnessed locally. Which would explain the nervousness of the cannibal chickens, and the other wildlife on the island. Except the key deer, who are never nervous. [[rule not to be followed when driving, pay attention to them then, because some get nervous by the road]])
This only leaves the what? And this is where I am stumped, because up until now, I’ve been calling this crime a burder. I’ve been calling it a crime. However, is that even true?
A lot of these crime dramas focus on the mystique, the intrigue of the crimes committed. They give lurid descriptions and settle upon stark titles. “Bird-murder, burder.” Many crime pieces paint vivid and alluring pictures, of the places where the crimes take place: “flocks of cannibal chickens,” “a community boundary set behind the Winn Dixie.” They sometimes focus more on the victim. (I did not do that.) And often focus on the perpetrator. Analyzing, picking the crimes and the criminals apart, so that they can come to some sort of my point.
I guess that the encounter my dad had at the Winn-Dixie reminded me of the point I’m supposed to make at the end of this farce. And that point is that we often see wildlife through our eyes. (obviously.) What I mean is that we anthropomorphize, we focus, we choose favorites, we try to relate. But wildlife is just that, wild.
The people in that parking lot chose sides. They wanted to defend those chickens. That hawk just wanted to eat, or perhaps to feed it’s young. I chose sides by portraying an animal hunting for it’s food as a criminal, and the seagull it attacked as a victim. I did it as a joke. I hope you can tell, this entire series has been a joke.
Realistically what dad and I saw was awesome, and it’s nice that we can share something like bird watching while we’re hanging out together. We were very fortunate to witness the hawk at work across the street, and I had a ton of fun, running through the possible timelines and realizing that we were probably witnessing a family of birds grow and develop through the seasons, which is cool.
Really, really, I just wanted to show off the pictures. But I guess if I had to come to any sort of thesis, it is this: True Crime is as much fiction as it is reality. We color the events as we portray them, and this is only heightened when we produce something for an audience. Life and nature, crime and growth can be contained and described in podcasts, books, and on screen, but we have a tendency to narrativize for entertainment.
Take your true crime with a grain of salt. Know that you are only getting a filtered version of events, and … I don’t really have a point about true crime.
I have a point about nature. Big Pine, like many areas, really is a boundary. It’s a boundary between humanity and the wilderness. And at these boundaries, we often insert ourselves when we should not. We feed the key deer because they look hungry. We defend the chicks because they look cute. We approach the Bison because we want a photo.
The thing is, out presence interferes. The hawk who was hunting those chicks had probably spent hours stalking them, waiting for the right time to attack. It needs to eat too, or perhaps feed it and it might go hungry because someone chose to side with the chickens, a seemingly charitable act, (but those chickens are cannibals.) Those key deer take offered cookies, but then they might walk away to develop bad hooves, as, if they are overfed on the wrong foods their hooves become overgrown, and they have to limp along in pain because someone wanted a cute photo op.
And it’s not just nature we foil. Sometimes we foil ourselves. If you read back over my past articles, you’ll read my complaints because I always missed the broad-winged hawk. It would fly away when I got close, or show up for my dad, to leave before I could get there. It wasn’t until I gave up, and just remained aware, that I got to see the juvenile perched on the poinciana swoop outside, and it was sheer chance that the same bird would perch, months later, with a successful kill across the street, allowing for an awesome photo op.
I guess what I am trying to say is that there was never a crime here. A bird is a bird. They do not murder. They hunt for food, and nature is best left alone. Sometimes when you do, you get to take good pictures.
I guess what I’m trying to say, is that if you witness a hawk hunting in a parking lot, let it eat.
I guess what I am saying, is that I started this as a joke, and I didn’t know how to stick the landing. (Pun absolutely intended.)
Here are some more bird pics!
Stay tuned, I’m back to normal blog times, and will even throw in a little extra in a couple days.
For any questions regarding a hawk, or to report another burder of your own, please start your own website, make your own blog about it, and then send those links to me via the contact section of Alienjest Press.