This morning I experienced the reality of nature.
As I was having my morning coffee, I heard birds in the backyard. JB just filled all the bird feeders, so what I thought I was hearing was just lots of birds. I listened.
Then the sound was more like a cry or a scream.
I went around to the kitchen and peered out. It looked like something was all into it with a blue jay. Thomas (the 20 pound cat) was sleeping in the chair. Obviously, not guilty.
I looked once more. It looked like a squirrel. But squirrels don't attack blue jays...
So I went for the binoculars.
It was a bird! By the time I roused JB, I was horrified. He tapped on the patio doors and off it flew, still holding fast to the blue jay. Like the flying monkeys in the Wizard of Oz, it had its prey dangling from its feet as it flew off.
It was hawk! Add that was when I learned about the feeding patterns of hawks.
What I witnessed in the backyard, plus what I learned about hawks from JB, is more like a real life horror movie. Selective pressure, I guess. It's like what Dr. Biology has said about the stronger weeding out the weaker. Not a pretty site, I tell you. Not pretty at all.
It's like the gun shots I hear in the early morning. I know its insane, but I wince every time I hear a shot. I immediately think about all those deer that have taken over my yard. I think about how awful it must be for them to be hunted.
And that's when I wish I could put up a wall all around the property line to provide a safe haven.
(I spoke to Momo earlier today on the telephone, and told her of the incident with the hawk and the blue jay. She assured me it was okay... because blue jays were overbearing birds and needed to be taken down a notch or two.)
8 comments:
It is not always pleasant to see Nature doing her stuff.
I just started feeding again a week ago. It just took a couple of days for the hawk to find the feeders. I see the hawk make its rounds 2 or 3 times a day.
That kind of thing just breaks my heart, though I'm not so naive as to believe that it isn't the way life is and needs to be.
And today is the first day of hunting season in my state. So...no school for the kids. Yet another reason to hate hunting!
Owls, hawks, house cats...all the bane to a songbird's fragile existence. We have all three lurking around our feeders and I kind of feel mean even offering my winged friends seed. But I'm with Momo...few weep for bluejays or gray squirrels. They're nasty bullies that dominate bird playgrounds.
TOTALLY feel the same way about the gun shots during deer season.
During duck hunting season, we had some duck hunters hiding their duck blind near our dock on the water and shooting ducks from there. THE SAME DUCKS THAT CAME UPON OUR LITTLE BEACH AREA AND I WATCHED GROW UP. (Talk about ANGRY)
Even worse? My bookstore is next door to the local butcher, so throughout the season I'll be gazing out the bookstore windows at our beautiful water view only to be ruined by a car driving by with a dead deer strapped to the top or the hood.
Kinda ruins the whole mood for me...
I am squarely with Momo on this. My most vivid blue-jay memory is a gang of them circling and taunting a wounded mouse, playing with it so to speak.
Every time I see a hawk, though, more likely than not there will be one or two little specks swooping at it and shoo-ing it away. Those little birds sure can give the raptors a run for their money!
It's okay. But we dont' have to like it.
i get scared when i hear gun shots because i feel so vulnerable running or walking in any wooded area.
poor jay, but they are kind of mean birds.
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