This morning I awoke to cloudy skies, a temperature of 34 degrees and a touch of snow on the tops of bird feeders and nest boxes. Shortly after rising I was standing at the window doing my morning survey of the yard and surroundings to see if any night creatures had left any signs of their passing. On the platform feeder were a Mourning Dove, a female cardinal and a female cowbird. A dark object coming in very quickly about forty yards behind the feeder caught my eye. In a fraction of a second my brain told me it was a bird, then a hawk, and I realized that it was rocketing directly toward the unsuspecting birds on the feeder. Over the years of living here on the mountain with the woods at the edge of the yard I have had many hawks to come out of nowhere and try for birds at the feeders, but this is the first time I ever saw the hawk before the birds did. Suddenly the birds became aware of the danger and burst into action. The dove flew left and the cardinal and the cowbird flew right, but by this time the very small Cooper's hawk was almost on them. It turned its underside toward me as it banked sharply left to make the turn around the front of the feeder, closing the gap between it, the cardinal and the cowbird. The reddish barring of its chest and the stripes of the flaring tail stood out in the morning light. The brighter, yellow talons contrasted with the darker body feathers. By now the gap between predator and prey was nearly closed, and the smaller birds were at the limits of their flying speed. The hawk quickly turned on its back, coming under the two smaller birds, its yellow talons flashing upward, closing on the cowbird. The cowbird understandably had a sudden rush of adrenalin and pulled upward at the last moment, just as the talons closed on empty air about two inches beneath her. By the time the hawk righted itself the birds were out of reach, so it broke off the chase. It flew to a post near the yard pond, sat there for a few moments, then slipped silently back into the woods, where I was sure a similar drama would be played out again. Below is a photo of the hawk perched on the post just before he launched himself into the air and disappeared into the woods. The post the hawk is perched on is 3 1/2 inches across, so you can see that this is a very small Cooper's Hawk, probably a male. Roger Mayhorn Compton Mt