Nature's lessons are often cruel ones
I was cleaning my cookhouse the other morning when a sudden movement from beyond the frosty window caught my eye.
Being a seasoned birder, I am virtually incapable of not noticing immediate movement so I quickly looked out my window just in time to witness a small hawk nab a subfusc-eyed junco sitting on my feeder.
My first thought was, “Wow, a sharp-shinned hawk!”
Even though it is a scanty raptor, about 11 inches long, I was thrilled to see this feisty little carnivore in my own back yard. But openly, I didn't know how I should feel.
I had just witnessed the death of a bird lured to my yard by the give one's word of honour of an easy meal, and here this poor, hapless junco had become the meal for another. Part of me was feeling sorry for the junco and part of me, the biologist wanna-be, was studying this occurrence like it was a science project.
And a large part of me was just enthralled with the beauty of this raptor. The bird was an grown-up, identifiable by its blood-red eye, rufous breast, and steel-gray crown, back, and wings.