Look... up in the sky....

.... it's a bird...... it's a hawk! And down the hawk flew, right into our yard, zeroing in on one of the tiny sparrows at our bird feeder. The smaller birds either heard or sensed the large hawk flying down at them, and they scattered into the azalea bushes around the four bird feeders in our back yard.

I saw the hawk as he flew straight into the largest of the azaleas-- so fast that I couldn't even see if he had one of the sparrows in his talons as he sped out of the bushes and up into the sky again. For the rest of the day, not a sparrow was in sight in our yard. The bird feeders were empty... not even the squirrels were out there. It was eerily quiet.

I've seen a hawk in our yard from time to time, and I always worried about AngelBoy when he was out in the yard. An adult hawk will fly low and scoop up a white rabbit if he's hungry enough, and AngelBoy, with his fluffy white/gray hair could easily be mistaken for a rabbit when seen from a bird's eye view. I had asked my next-door neighbor V about that possibility, since she knows so much about the local creatures and their habits, but she hadn't ever heard about a hawk flying away with a cat.

"Then again, AngelBoy could be the first for the record books," she told me. That wouldn't exactly make me proud, was my answer to her. I never worry about AngelBoy and the hawks anymore, since my cats no longer go out into the back yard.

But the poor sparrows...... they wouldn't have a chance against a hawk. I've always fed the birds, and I don't plan on stopping now. I guess the sparrows will have to just take their chances, and be aware of large brown hawks hovering up in the Live Oak tree at the back of our property. I wish the hawks would zone in on the tiny field mice and leave the cute little sparrows alone.