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Thursday, February 15, 2007

Better than TV--Backyard Wild Kingdom

With snow covering the ground, our feeders at work are loaded with birds--dozens of juncos and white-throated sparrows at a time on the ground. Yesterday there were over 20 cardinals at once in the snow. Today, while I was watching the action, a young Cooper's Hawk swooped in and scattered all the birds. It landed in a bare tree and preened for a few minutes. Finally, a young white-throated sparrow took off out of a nearby holly tree, and the hawk bolted after it. The sparrow hit an upstairs window, and before it could hit the ground, the Cooper's Hawk had grabbed it in mid-air not five feet from me just outside my window, and landed in the snow with the sparrow in its talons. We considered each other for a moment, and the hawk flew off carrying the hapless sparrow. Amazing!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yikes....and I thought I had a good day with just a red tail landing in a tree across the street.
I hope the birds are as good this weekend as they have been all week in the yard!

Larry said...

I enjoy watching hawks take birds in the backyard.-My wife says she hates it but she always grabs the binoculars to have a look when it happens.

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