Death Song

A favorite menu item of the Coops. We never have more than a couple Rock Pigeons,
but there are often piles of feathers in the barnyard.

Yeah, I wear the binoculars around my neck when I hang clothes on the line. Doesn't everybody?

Anyhow, this soggy, gloomy morning I was putting some blankets out there...they will dry eventually.....maybe. And it's not like we need them much this time of year.

Suddenly a robin flew straight overhead making the oddest noise. I put the bins on it to be sure it was a robin because it sounded so odd even though I could see it clearly. Then the starlings joined in and a black cloud of Common Grackles descended over me.

Out of the box elders burst a Coopers Hawk, the first I have seen since winter, when one even hunted inside the heifer barn. This was colored like an adult but acted like an amateur, flushing from cover to cover and skulking under the leaves as best it could. It was ducking and dodging and trying hard to escape the magnificent mobbing it was getting.

You get an idea just how many yard birds you have when something like that happens. There were at least fifty common sorts alarming and dive bombing and more were still coming in from every direction, when it finally vanished to the north.

You should have heard them! The song of death is sharp and pretty just like the talons of the stone cold killer that caused it. I hope I have the camera next time.