January 2, 2017
There is a small Hawk up in the Shagbark Hickory tree just outside my desk window. I was looking out the window gazing at the River, as I am often wont to do, when it flew onto the lowest branch a few minutes ago and settled in. The sun is behind it and as such, it is hard to make out its coloring and markings, but I knew it was a hawk by the shape of its head when I watched it land.
What I did not see, when it landed, was that it landed with a small bird in its talon. Ah… Breakfast.
Hawk has been busy, sitting there on the tree limb shredding the Small Bird, sending its delicate little feathers to flutter and tumble-down to the ground below the tree.
Given the relatively small size of the hawk, I am thinking it is the same Sharp-shinned Hawk that I have seen in the yard in the past. A Sharp-shinned Hawk is America’s smallest hawk. It has a long tail, long legs and short wings. They are very agile fliers who easily zip in between trees to grab they prey.
One day a few months ago, I looked out the window in front of my desk, to see a hawk sitting in the yew bush right in front of the window. It was quite the surprise for the two of us, actually as I looked out saw the hawk staring in the window at me. “Oh,” I exclaimed, as the hawk ducked back down in the bush and then made its exit through the front of the bush.
A Crow landed in the Maple tree to the left of the Hickory that Hawk sits busily eating breakfast. Now Crow is shrieking at Hawk, demanding that Hawk leave it some dregs of Small Bird. However, Hawk has been up there so long with Small Bird I can’t imagine that he has not stripped the bones clean. There seem to be no more feathers fluttering to the ground. There is just Hawk and his breakfast. He is fastidious in making sure he does not leave a morsel behind.
Finished now, he hops to another branch and sits facing the sun. Pleased as he is to have had a healthy breakfast. Perhaps not as hearty as he liked or needed, his wings lifted and he flew off in the direction of the bird feeder on the other side of the yard. The cycle of nature and life itself, never ceases to amaze me.
