During the early winter months we have had a small falcon –
often referred to as a sparrow hawk – routinely visit an oak tree in our back
yard. He perches on a limb arm’s length above
ground and close to our glass patio doors.
Between the house and his perch are several bird feeders. Our raptor stalks the bird feeder and makes
his living flushing birds into panicked flight. Invariably, blinded by terror
and the sun’s reflection from the glass doors, one of the small birds will fly
headlong into the windows and flop unconscious onto the deck. A heartbeat later our falcon scoops up the
unfortunate and returns to his limb for lunch. Using the glass doors to defeat
his prey is hunting behavior this falcon has learned. Finches and juncos are the usual victims along
with occasional fat turtle dove that was not smart enough to migrate with the
others. Unfortunately, the sparrows that
throw all the seed on the ground seem too smart for this trick. Today our falcon sat on the limb near the
feeder. The small birds fled except for
one bright red cardinal cornered deep in the middle of a shrub denuded of its
leaves. The falcon’s perch was only a
few feet above the cardinal and the falcon looked intently before he dove into
the thick brush and climbed his way through the thicket to the cardinal. While the falcon was tangled in the limbs the
cardinal dropped out of the bottom and flew for a thicker hedge nearby with the
falcon inches behind. We don’t feed
birds to see harm come to them but without the feeder we would never see the
falcon. We have come to accept this life
and death drama. Nevertheless, we enjoy
the cardinals and I walked the yard looking for red feathers. There weren’t any.
