[Birdtalk] A casualty at the banquet

[Connie McManus]

I'm more than just a little saddened by the untimely death of one of my SONG
SPARROWS.  I went out to play with the dogs in the snow, and what did I see
lying at the feet of my most beloved dog, Jack?  A dead song sparrow.  I
couldn't believe he would do such a thing -- he's not interested in birds
and he's not quick enough to catch them.  When I carefully picked it up, I
was relieved to see that the bird had no dog slobber on it and it hadn't
been munched by big teeth, but there were a couple of punctures that had
blood on them, so I guessed it was another bird that had killed him.  I
looked around to see if there were any raptors perched on some high place
watching me and could not see any.  So I put the poor thing in the
garbage.   Later on, as I was hanging a suet feeder in the crab apple, I
noticed a clump of feathers a few feet away.  When I went to check it out,
sure enough, there were the tell-tale feather imprints in the snow of a
raptor kill.  I think it was a kestrel judging from the size of the feathers
and the arc of their imprint.

I'm in mourning for this little guy. I have grown very fond of all the birds
that come to the table feeder, especially the SOSP and the ATSP.  I am
trying to get photos of all of them and this little guy was not very
cooperative with the camera, but today I managed to get a couple that are
passable.  Here are the pics I took of the poor little thing.

 http://picasaweb.google.com/connie.mcmanus/SongSparrow
-- 
Connie McManus
Nibley, Cache County, Utah
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