Fishing’s been a bit slow (actually I have no idea how the fishing’s been; I’ve been too busy with home remodeling to get out the past month), so I thought I’d post on a frequent visitor’s exploits. The sharp-shin finally scored a kill; it’s been stooging around the bird feeder for about a month now and put up goose eggs, but it nailed a sparrow that was a hair too slow to flee. Got a few poor pics (none of the kill) when I was putting seed in the feeder this morning; saw it up in the tree before I went out so grabbed the camera.
Meanwhile, the cooper’s hawk seems to bag a meal every time it shows up.
They remind me of the Merlin falcon and Kestrel hawk that used to regularly waylay, and eat, the smaller birds ( sparrows, wrens, etc ) that visited our yard down in SE Idaho to feed on the seeds and grain that we put out. Only saw it a few times, but it was amazing when one of them would take one of the smaller birds in mid flight.
We get a neat variety of small birds at the feeders up here, but no falcons or hawks.
Below photo is what turned up at our back yard bird feeder twice now. Last time bent the metal old clothesline pole in concrete about 45 degrees to get to the suet and bird food. First encounter ever. About ten yards off the back deck and first time was about 7:30 when I went downstairs to watch a football game. Never heard a thing although my wife said she thought that the solar light on the shed came on just after we went downstairs although we obviously didn’t look out the door and check. Got 15 shots from the trail camera first appearance with two standing and appears to be a large male.
