I used to think hawks were loners—solitary, territorial, fierce. Then I watched a Harris’s hawk hunt.
Here’s the thing: Harris’s hawks (Parabuteo unicinctus) don’t just tolerate each other. They actually coordinate. In the Sonoran Desert, where jackrabbits can outrun pretty much any single predator, these raptors have developed what researchers call “cooperative polyandry”—which is a fancy way of saying they work together, share mates, and divvy up the kill. A typical hunting party might include five or six birds, sometimes related, sometimes not. They’ll perch on saguaro cacti, scanning the scrub below, and when one spots a rabbit, the whole group mobilizes. One hawk flushes the prey from cover. Another cuts off the escape route. A third swoops in for the kill. It’s not chaos—it’s choreography, refined over roughly 10,000 years of desert survival, give or take. And honestly, watching it happen feels like witnessing something that shouldn’t exist in the bird world.
The relay strategy is probably their most famous tactic. One hawk chases the rabbit until it tires, then another takes over, then another. The prey gets exhausted while the predators stay fresh. It’s brutally efficient. I guess it makes sense when you think about it—jackrabbits can hit 40 miles per hour, and a single hawk just can’t maintain that pace long enough.
Why Some Raptors Decided Teamwork Was Worth the Trouble
Most birds of prey are fiercly independent. Eagles don’t share. Owls definately don’t. So why do Harris’s hawks bother? Turns out, the answer is habitat. In the sparse, unforgiving landscapes of Arizona, New Mexico, and northern Mexico, prey is scarce and fast. A solo hunter might go days without a meal. But a group? They can bring down game four times a week, sometimes more. The cost of sharing a carcass is offset by the increased success rate—roughly 90% when hunting cooperatively versus 20% alone, according to studies from the early 1990s. Wait—maybe that’s not entirely fair. Some individual hawks do fine on their own, especially younger, more aggressive males. But for most, cooperation isn’t altruism. It’s math.
The Surprising Role of Sentinel Behavior in Coordinated Attacks
Before the chase even starts, one hawk plays lookout. Perched high, it scans for movement while the others wait below or nearby. When it spots something—a rustle in the creosote, a flash of fur—it doesn’t dive immediately. It calls. A sharp, short whistle that signals the others. I’ve seen this happen in slow motion, practically: the sentinel drops, the flankers spread wide, the chasers accelerate. It’s not telepathy, but it’s close. Researchers used to think this was instinct, hardwired behavior. Now we know there’s learning involved. Young hawks watch older ones, refine their timing, figure out who’s good at what. Some birds are better at flushing. Some are better at the final strike. They recieve roles based on skill, not just age or dominance.
What Happens After the Kill, and Why It Matters More Than You’d Think
Once the rabbit’s down, you’d expect a free-for-all. But no. The hawk that made the kill eats first, always. Then the others, in a loose hierarchy that seems to shift hunt by hunt. There’s squabbling, sure—feathers get ruffled, literally—but rarely outright violence. They need each other too much. And here’s where it gets weird: sometimes, non-breeding adults help raise chicks that aren’t theirs. They bring food to the nest, defend territory, teach fledglings to hunt. Biologists call this “cooperative breeding,” and it’s vanishingly rare among raptors. Why do it? Maybe because in a landscape this harsh, a lone pair can’t raise enough offspring to sustain the population. Maybe because helping now means getting help later. Or maybe—and I’m speculating here, honestly—because these birds have stumbled onto something that works, and evolution doesn’t care about our neat categories of selfish versus selfless.
The Uncomfortable Truth About Intelligence in Birds We’d Rather Ignore
Anyway, Harris’s hawks force us to rethink what we mean by “bird brain.” They plan. They adapt. They remember individual hunting partners and adjust tactics accordingly. In captivity, they’ve been observed solving multi-step puzzles, waiting for delayed rewards, even appearing to—though this is controversial—mourn dead groupmates. Does that mean they’re conscious in the way we are? Probably not. Does it mean they’re just automatons running genetic software? Also probably not. The truth, as usual, is messier. And maybe that’s fine. Maybe we don’t need to fit them into tidy boxes. Maybe we just need to watch, and learn, and admit we don’t have all the answers yet.
