A hawk in New Jersey learned to navigate the signals at an intersection in order to ambush its prey. Zoologist Vladimir Dinets with the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, who lived nearby, observed a Cooper’s hawk using the pedestrian “walk” signal to plan its hunts.
When someone wanted to cross the street, they’d press the button for the “walk” signal and it would make a noise. The hawk learned to recognize that noise and would fly to a specific tree when it heard the sound. Dinets said it would then wait while the cars stopping at the intersection because of the crossing signal began to add up. When the line of stopped cars reached the tree where the hawk was hiding, it would use them as cover to cross the street and dive to get something near one of the houses.
It turned out the family that lived in the house near the hawk’s chosen tree liked to eat their dinner outside, and smaller birds would flock to the site afterward to collect the crumbs. The hawk figured this out and learned that it could sneak up on the prey birds unnoticed if there were enough cars to provide cover. So it learned that the sound of the pedestrian crossing signal meant it was time to prepare for a hunt.
