I Know It's Only Nature But I'm Still the Villain
(Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know... more birds. But that's why God invented the back key.)
I was at the hardware store Saturday afternoon and noticed suet cakes on sale. I usually stop feeding suet to the birds during warm weather because suet can melt and get disgusting. But the cakes were cheap and I thought, "Why not one more round?"
I bought two cakes.
Not an hour later I was standing on my deck looking out at my feeding stations, the suet feeder freshly filled with two blocks of hardware store suet. On the feeder clung a downy woodpecker happily pecking away at the fresh fat. "Boy, that didn't take long," I congratulated myself, glad I decided to go with the suet one more time.
Then from the right, between my neighbor's house and mine, I watch a Cooper's hawk glide in not six feet above the ground - silent as a wraith - heading directly toward the feeders. It pulls-up in midair, hovers momentarily right by the suet feeder, plucks off the woodpecker in a flash, and flies into the woods carrying the hapless, unsuspecting bird.
I knew my feeders were a favorite haunt for area hawks. I've seen remains before. But this was the first time I'd actually witnessed a nab. And a downy! Why couldn't it have been a house sparrow? I felt very bad.
As they say, no good deed goes unpunished.
K-
I was at the hardware store Saturday afternoon and noticed suet cakes on sale. I usually stop feeding suet to the birds during warm weather because suet can melt and get disgusting. But the cakes were cheap and I thought, "Why not one more round?"
I bought two cakes.
Not an hour later I was standing on my deck looking out at my feeding stations, the suet feeder freshly filled with two blocks of hardware store suet. On the feeder clung a downy woodpecker happily pecking away at the fresh fat. "Boy, that didn't take long," I congratulated myself, glad I decided to go with the suet one more time.
Then from the right, between my neighbor's house and mine, I watch a Cooper's hawk glide in not six feet above the ground - silent as a wraith - heading directly toward the feeders. It pulls-up in midair, hovers momentarily right by the suet feeder, plucks off the woodpecker in a flash, and flies into the woods carrying the hapless, unsuspecting bird.
I knew my feeders were a favorite haunt for area hawks. I've seen remains before. But this was the first time I'd actually witnessed a nab. And a downy! Why couldn't it have been a house sparrow? I felt very bad.
As they say, no good deed goes unpunished.
K-
I've seen the aftermath here many, many times but I've so far been spared the live drama. The hawk has little ones to feed, too. Like you say, why not a sparrow?
We've seen Cooper's hawks consuming their freshly caught meals on telephone poles and pine trees. We had one fly headlong into the neighbor's sequoia in pursuit of a mourning dove (or some other morsel on the wing), occasioning an explosion of birds from the tree. The hawk flew away empty-taloned. But once, Kate was in the backyard when there was a loud thump behind her in the grass; a Cooper's hawk had grabbed a dove and hit the ground before it could pull out of its dive. It flew away with the prize.
Discovered a huge pile of feathers out by the feeder yesterday. Looks like a mourning dove met its demise.
K-