It has been a while since I have posted about the feeder.
During a recent cold snap, this Chickadee puffed up to keep in the heat.
Many thanks to readers who contributed with donations. During a recent sale I was able to stock up on some high-nutrient food for the visitors.
This one took advantage of the webcam cable to pick open a sunflower seed.
A Nuthatch.
Not to be outdone….
Here is a more frequent visitor. A different sort of feeder feeder. The feeders at the feeder are fed upon.
Remember this one from the great Vincenzo?
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Oh, yeah. A member of the Hawk Gang. I have one who trawls my neighborhood, looking to do a fly-by mugging. If I am outside working, and all is chatter and celebration at the feeders… and then a sudden and very long silence falls… I know that da Hawk is in da ‘hood.
I saw three eagles this morning out in the back of the quad where I live. Beautiful birds. Thanks so much for the great photos, and I hope Mr. Hawk did not kill any of the little cuties.
LOL, nice helmet Father
Its the circle of life. Hawks and Falcons are incredible creatures.
coopers maybe?
Falconry has always interested me…. Our Creator must have had a ball putt’en a hawk together…
Hakuna Matata . . . the Circle of Life. The beauty of nature is often a terrible beauty.
I am grateful that somehow our same family of seven Eastern Bluebirds has survived the winter intact. I don’t know how they do it. I notice they often disappear when the Cooper’s hawk is in the neighborhood.
Lol! Tradmum, with all respect, I hope the Hawk did kill the cuties (though perhaps not too many of them!). Along with the eagle, and (maybe discongruently) the hummingbird, I find the hawk to be among the most beautiful birds, and they, too, need food!
Gorgeous birds of prey! Although I must cheer the little fluffs of feather, who can deny the Creator’s pride in these hawks?
I love raptors. These are beautiful. I do hope for the sake of bird-cam viewers and those that feed at them that these hawks also got their fill of squirrels.
I also love falcons. Magpies and crows, on the other hand, I find highly annoying, and used to shoot them as a boy with my BB gun. Now, though, I would only hunt pheasant and quail, and only to eat…
Let us hope you never have to eat crow!
o{];¬)
Re: other news, we are already. I am trying to concentrate on the passage about the sparrows. Behold the birds of the air, for they neither sow, nor do they reap, nor gather into barns: and your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are not you of much more value than they?
Maltese,
I am very partial to chickadees.
I’d be happy to contribute if you seriously are spending the money on birdseed.
Some years ago I still lived on the same street I grew up on. My front yard faced the back yard of some neighbors. These neighbors grandkids often played softball in that backyard.
One day, I was sitting in my living room reading a book by Louis Lamour, when there was a loud thump on the front porch wall that seperated the front door and the two living room windows.
I went to investigate and fully expected to find a softball on the front porch. Instead, I found a dead house sparrow lying about 2 inches from the wall. The little bird had one single puncture wound in the dead center of it’s chest.
Turning then to look in the front yard, there sitting on the ground near the bird feeder was an obviously addled hawk. The hawk had apparently been in pursuit of the saprrow. The sparrow in it’s panic had flown towards the front of the house. The hawk caught the sparrow, but was moving so fast it couldn’t stop or change direction and crashed into that wall.
The width of that wall was only 12 inches, and if that hawk had come in just a few inches to either the left or right, he would have come through the glass, and I would have had an unexpected visitor in the living room.
Trust me, Fr. Z, my wife makes me eat crow almost every day!
I used to live in Albany, New York. The Hudson Valley is a raptor migration flyway. In the fall we’d often see the mortal remains of pigeons strewn about…Hawks are indeed splendid creatures. I hope, Father, that your chickadee friends escaped and that your predatory visitor found a fat, disgusting pigeon to nosh on.
Yes, I admit to some avian prejudices.
It would be a pretty amazing hawk that could grab a chickadee. They are interested in the larger, slower, juicier, and deeply stupid doves.
I have seen a hawk kill a dove, but the dove was on the ground.
‘Deeply stupid doves’-you’re so right, Father Z! They are so dumb, I’m almost on top of them with my car before they decide to fly away! I have to yell at them, ‘Hey, get out of the way, or else you’re gonna be squab!’
Oooo-that hawk looks pretty dangerous!
Love Vincenzo’s pic, however….!
Great pictures, Fr. Z. I always enjoy seeing the Feeder Feed pop up when I visit. That hawk is gorgeous and fearsome-looking all at once. I’ve noticed an increased interest in suet here lately.
Couple of small woodpeckers (downy/hairy, not sure) and a red-bellied woodpecker, nuthatch, and a certain wren that can cling to the side of tree trunks, all have appeared in the last week or so, just for the suet. Thanks for posting the pictures and for sharing the bird newz.