February 04, 2007
Rolling With It
The eldest Llama-ette and I were sitting in our library a while ago working on her reading comprehension homework. All of a sudden, there was a tremendous bang against the window. I looked up just in time to see a mourning dove flutter away. Coming up fast behind it was a pigeon hawk. The hawk circled the yard a couple times, alighting in various trees and looking extremely crabby, before it flew off.
Needless to say, the reading exercise quickly transmogrified into an ornithology lesson.
Posted by Robert at February 4, 2007 03:33 PM | TrackBackI have some gargantuan junipers in the back yard and every whitewing and mourning dove for miles roosts in them: We're talking well over 50 birds. About one or two per anum commit suicide-by-glass on either my bedroom window, or my livingroom window, while trying to escape the talons of the neighborhood kestrels (I pick up the poor thing, look over first one shoulder, then the other, and prepare for a breakfast treat if the coast is clear). Whitewing breast wrapped in bacon... mmmmmmm.
For some reason, they all decide to bid the cruel world goodbye at about 6:55 AM CDT.
The kestrels here border on being fat. Seriously. They get more than enough to eat and I really think they're just hunting for sport now... or spite.
Posted by: Hucbald at February 5, 2007 04:38 PM
Image courtesy of the lovely and talented 