Basically Hawks Take Bird Feeding to a Whole New Level

So, Friday I had a pet sitting 'meet and greet' with two adorable yellow labs. The five month old basically flipped over all the smells in our woods. As we were touring the dogs over our acre, I realized my comment to their 'mom' that, "Oh, we must have had a hawk come by. That's why there are all these feathers all over," probably seemed oddly casual.

The fact is, though, we see a lot of life AND death on this acre so finding the odd bit of this or that isn't too unusual.

Just this morning, Scott stepped outside for a second right as a red-tailed hawk was swooping over the lawn. I was trying to see where it went in the trees when it swooped down again. Scott thought he saw it grab something small, possibly a mouse, but I suspect it may have been the sparrow that had met a bad ending with our window earlier.  Whatever it had, it must have been just an appetizer portion because then, this...

Um, sitting ON the bird feeder. Yeah, real subtle.

I was actually surprised to see this guy because I was expecting our Cooper's hawk. (I add a personal possessive to every animal I see out there because they are family.) Now, I'm no hawk but when you sit on top of the bird feeder, you basically lose the element of surprise, right? Right. So, up to the tree it flew.

Woman, why don't you just wash those dishes and leave me to my hunting?

 Didn't take long for it to realize that it had effectively cleared out the buffet spread at the newly filled feeders. On to the neighbors!

Fine, I'll just scope out the neighbor's feeders then. No big whoop. Later.