Saturday, September 18, 2010

Cooper's Hawk in my backyard!

I got to witness some predator vs prey action right in my backyard. Luckily for the Flicker, things ended well but the Copper's Hawk was left hungry. It was dinnertime and we were getting ready to have dinner on the deck when I saw the action. As I stepped out on my deck, I ducked because I thought a Flicker was going to dive-bomb me. Then I realized there was this Cooper's Hawk right on it tail and very close to nabbing it mid-air! They both zoomed around to the side of my house and as I poked my head around the corner, the hawk had landed on my fence and the Flicker was nowhere in sight. I quickly grabbed my camera but unfortunately didn't have my DSLR and had to resort to using my point and shoot thus resulting in a less-than-desirable image. I was able to get it to look a bit decent with some post-processing. I thought it was odd that the hawk stopped dead in it's tracks to land on my fence and since it stayed there for a bit I thought sure it may have caught the Flicker as it turned the corner, dropped it and was waiting for it's audience to leave so it could return to it's prey. It finally flew away and I surveyed the area around my house and didn't find any evidence that the Flicker had been caught. I'm sure glad I didn't have to witness that! Bird world is harsh!

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