[TopOfUtah] Sharpie Attack!

[Steve Carr]

Jason,

I had the same experience yesterday only with a Cooper's Hawk.  My feeders 
are constantly abuzz with avian activity that every now and then attracts 
the raptors.  This hawk flew down to just above the deck, and passerines 
scattered in every direction.  He came around and nailed a House Finch about 
3 feet outside my viewing window, then flew up to my grape arbor, about 10 
feet away, for a good pose, then went off to a little more secluded tree for 
his lunch.  Very dramatic.

--Steve
Holladay



----Original Message Follows----
From: "Jason Pietrzak" <jaypie77 at gmail.com>
To: "Box Elder Cache Rich hotline" <topofutah at utahbirds.org>
Subject: [TopOfUtah] Sharpie Attack!
Date: Mon, 15 Dec 2008 13:02:43 -0700

Moments ago while eating lunch and watching my feeders, there was a crowd of
House Finches, a few Siskins, a Song Sparrow, and a lot of Juncos in the
bushes at the back of the yard. Suddenly a dark shape seemed to fall from
the sky and into the Junco bush. I don't know a lot about plants, but these
bushes are currently bare and full of red berries that nobody seems to want
to eat. The bush collects snow well and the Juncos have always hidden down
in the passages under the snow in this bush.

So this dark shape falls from the sky and at first I think it was a broken
branch or maybe a small squirrel (though I've never seen one in the yard
before, but I have seen squirrels fall from trees) and then it starts
flopping around in the bottom of the bush, branches swinging around wildly,
snow flying left and right, birds scattering - one even (softly) flew into
my patio door... The dark shape emerges and it is a Sharp-shinned Hawk! I
put out extra feeders recently to try to snag a Redpoll, but the
Sharp-shinned is a decent consolation. It pops out to the top of the bush.
Not 20 feet from me, sitting in plain view, posing nicely but I've left my
binos and my camera at somebody else's house and with the naked eye I can
see that he missed his target.

He just left and the feeder birds are re-emerging now. Hope your
feeder-watching is exciting as mine!

Keep your feeders full,

Jason Pietrzak


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