We turn away from the carnage to quiet our frayed nerves and calm our horror-filled hearts. When we look outside our windows, it is like returning to the life we knew before the disaster, when the slow rhythms of natural world dictated our own pace. Our yard has browned in the late summer. Many weeds have grown up and gone to seed. Ripe plums litter the ground beneath the tree, along with the red apples in the orchard. Their colors remind us of spring flowers shooting up from the wood chipped earth. There are fewer birds these days. All the migrators have headed south. The hawks that feed on smaller birds don't have as many choices. We watched the Cooper's hawk sit on the rock next to the bushes where the little birds hide, in a food getting behavior that was not particularly productive. So, the other day we observed how it had changed its tactics. The hawk returned and searched for quite some time looking for better vantage points from which to hunt. dpr photographed it as it moved around the yard.
First it simply perched on the platform feeder. Seemed rather obvious, but it was worth a try.
Then it headed over to the little bench next to the pond. An interesting choice, we like to sit there too.
It moved closer to the pond. Often there are birds bathing in the upper pond before the waterfall.
A little closer to that upper pond, but still no luck.
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