My proletarian birds, mostly blackies and robins, have fled in panic. Perched in a high burr oak branch hanging over the guest cabin, watchful as a sober Secret Service agent, the predator lurks -- or did until I scared him off trying for a photo.
It's a sparrow hawk. They're not uncommon in the woods and fields around here, but this is the first time I've spotted one hunting the Camp J grounds.
I hope he hangs around. This is one of the years when I need to trim up the no-mow zone, and he'd be handy for helping control the creepie-crawlies displaced by the tidying -- the field mice, the occasional garter snake, and maybe even the village zoning czar whom I believe lurks there, fiddling hopefully with his video camera.
2 comments:
I found one after a hail storm one time, groggy. I put him in a cage and dutifully fed him sparrows every day. I was not aware at the time that they are not called sparrow hawks because they eat them, but because they are small, as I understand it. Took him about three days and when I threw a sparrow in the cage door for him, he'd meet me half way and seemed to have improved, so i left the cage door open and out he flew. Stuck around for several days. I always enjoy seeing them, tho' I don't see many. We still have not recovered all the bird numbers we lost when West Nile came thru'. And I myself have not completely recovered from it either.
I like them too, and I'm willing to accept their appetite for pheasant chicks and eggs as a reasonable price for pleasure of watching them soar about their business.
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