Unwanted Baggage…
Earlier this week I glanced up and noticed this hawk zipping by quickly above me as I stood on the edge of the marsh. It was not until I looked at the images later that I realized the bird was trailing something behind it. I believe it is fishing line and if that’s the case it may have a hook stuck in it somewhere. Many times I have seen pelicans with hooks and fishing lures stuck in them and that’s often of a result of how they fish and glide low just above the ocean near shore where they get snagged by people surf fishing.
I don’t know how a hawk got snagged but I hope he can work free of it…
Phil Lanoue Photography 
I hope he gets that off somehow! coopers hawk, I think
Yeah I hope he gets it off too. I was thinking adult Cooper’s as well, thanks for the verification.
Hope so too.
Hard to see this, I know it happens but still hard to see.
That’s really unwanted. I imagine that’s a scenario that often doesn’t end well. At least it looks like its flying OK.
It did seem to be flying well, and I suspect they adapt and deal with such things as long as they can. Either they work free of it or the thing eventually does it in. Often not a good situation though.
Sad to see the things we do to our innocent critters.
Yeah fishing seems to be the single most harmful thing for shore birds in our area. We have the ocean and the inlets, marshes and rivers, so we have lots of water and lots of fishing.
Not good at all, Phil. So sad to see something like this. I hope he can free himself.
It is sad to see for sure Sylvia. And we see it far too often for my liking.
I’ve never seen a hawk hooked before. Sad! Hope you are staying warm up there.
I wouldn’t even to able to guess how this hawk might have been hooked, but hope he gets free of it.
It’s warm-er up here but still not what it should be.
Dang that’s sad.
Gorgeous photo.
It is sad but I appreciate you taking a look.
That is such a shame. It happens here by the river too as fishermen discard all kinds of things that hurt wildlife. When I walk the gorge, I take a bag to clean up what I can.
We often pick up discarded lumps of fishing line with hooks and lures etc. attached that we find on the beach.
Too much of this ends up impacting wildlife, and possibly humans as well.
Beautiful shot but sad story.
Thanks Jan, and yes it is sad if that hawk has a hook stuck in it and will be forced to drag line around.
Such a beautiful bird. We humans do so much damage to the creatures that share our world.
It is indeed a beautiful bird Maggie and sadly we see such effects much too often.
Hope he can ditch that line off, and if there is a hook it does not do damage. 😦
That’s what we are hoping as well. Maybe it will end up being only a temporary problem for this hawk.
The big damage in the UK used to be to swans. My dog picked up a double barbed fish hook on the beach one day, nightmare to get out, because whichever way you pulled it, it would dig in deeper the other way. To this day I don’t know how my partner got it out. Another reason to be glad I don’t eat fish.
All the thousands (millions?) of discarded fish hooks have to end up somewhere and you have to figure some are going to cause distress to some person or poor little creature.
I understand that hooks dissolve in fish. Maybe that will happen here too and the line will fall away. Hope so. Great picture in any case.
I was not aware of that but hope it happens and this hawk manages to get free of the entanglement.
Long as he doesn’t get the trailing line tangled up, he’ll be okay. Hopefully the fishing line will fray quickly.