Maybe Ollie is right to watch shadows. If I had I would have missed this one though. A sharp-eyed sharp-shinned hawk sailed into the yard and snatched a sparrow who had been looking down at cracked corn instead of up at the sky - the place that danger comes from.
The hawk ate and ate and scattered the feathers and ate some more.
At first I was slightly appalled. After all, it is MY job to decide what goes on in the yard (except when I am asleep and then its everyone for himself). But the sharpie was efficient. There was no sport in his actions, only grim survival. No one hands him crunchies in a bowl twice a day.
The yard remained quiet for a few hours. My Person shoveled away the feathers, feet and beak left behind in the snow. A crow, sentinel of the bird world, made sure the sharpie didn't hang around all afternoon, digesting and scaring the chickadees and house finches that normally populate the yard.
Today a few flight feathers poke up through a fresh dusting of snow and the goldfinches glean the seed heads of cone flowers. Wild life goes on.
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