The Hawk Did What!?

Seeing this active flock of starlings reminded me of a poem I wrote a few summers ago.  It was after witnessing...twice...a hawk using a clearly intentional method for securing a meal. 

The starlings that visited our suet cakes on the upper deck were transitory.  They were just passing through, so they were not familiar with the setting.  The hawk learned that it could swoop in and spook the starlings into panicked manuevers, and one would often glance off the glass patio doors.  The impact would disorient it, and the hawk would have an easier time taking it.

So.....

TRANSITORY STARLINGS

With cackles and whistles

The starling flock

Landed on thistle and stem and stalk.

Swarming feeders and suet,

Each hen and cock

Beaked and gulped with hungry squawk.

They hopped and fed

And replenished their stock,

Then paid for dinner to the resident hawk.

Last Saturday we heard the jays shriek and saw all the birds scatter.  We looked carefully and picked out a smallish hawk in the big pine, looking at our platform feeder as if it was a buffet.

I stepped outside and hollered, but this hawk wasn't impressed.  I lobbed some paintballs in its direction with a slingshot.  It still wasn't impressed.

We watched and saw a clueless dove land on top of the feeder.  I walked out on the deck and clapped my hands.  The dove turned toward me, with its back to the hawk...great!...I was making it easier for the raptor.

I clapped and shouted frantically and the dove left, but the hawk decided 'now or never' and zipped downwards into the sumac for a strike on another bird.  We couldn't tell if it was successful or not.

We went to take our showers after this nature show.  I was toweling off when I looked out our bedroom window and saw a very large hawk standing on the snow outside the fence, where I throw used seed for the squirrels and ground-feeding birds.  Oh, wait.  It wasn't standing on the snow.  It was standing on a squirrel.  It wasn't a small pine squirrel, it was a large, dead fox squirrel.

"Michele," I called melodically, "come here.  A great big hawk is eating a fox squirrel."

"A squirrel!?" she asked in shock, reaching for her glasses.

We can both tell you that watching a hawk eat is not for the queasy.