While this sort of thing must happen every day, it's startling when it happens just a few feet from our home. I don't think I'll put that fish feeder into the lake this spring. No telling what might happen. 
| The biggest snow storm of the winter of 2009-2010 in the New York metro area happened on February 25 and 26. At the home of your photographer in Westchester County NY, about a foot of snow fell. It was heavy, wet, and clingy. It took down trees, bushes, power lines, and my old outdoor TV antenna. We had posted a bird feeder in our yard to give the birds some help finding food during this unusually long and cold winter, but little did we know that we'd attract such a diverse crowd. The picture on the right shows the bird feeder, a couple of blue jays, a dove, and several smaller birds. You can also see the impressive snow caps on the bird feeder and the posts in the foreground. |
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| But it's not only the birds that are hungry this morning. A little mouse wants some seed too. This little guy had been scampering in and out of his secure nest to get some seed. And for some reason, on this trip he paused to look around. Maybe to look at the snow? Snow was not the only thing falling from the sky on this morning. |
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| Without warning a hawk dropped out of the sky, landing directly on the little mouse. Neither of us saw the bird coming. It seems physically impossible for the hawk to have seen the little mouse from a few hundred feet away, and then dive from that height so quickly that the mouse had no chance to react. All the more remarkable is the hawk's navigation of the overhanging trees and telephone wires and the bushes, posts, and house surrounding his quarry. I believe that you can see the mouse's tail in the second picture on the right. |
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| The hawk paused for perhaps 30 seconds with the mouse in his talons. At one point he turned his head and looked straight at me. Was he considering trading his mouse breakfast for a photographer brunch? |
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| The hawk's brief visit was over in a few clicks of the shutter, and the great bird spread his wings to escape with his prey. |
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As he took off, I managed to snap the picture on the right showing the bird's legs and feet. If you look closely you can see the same little mouse that I had photographed moments before (shown at the top of this page).
While this sort of thing must happen every day, it's startling when it happens just a few feet from our home. I don't think I'll put that fish feeder into the lake this spring. No telling what might happen. |
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Cortlandt Manor, NY on Feb.27, 2010 by Jim Christensen