[va-richmond-general] Cooperative Sharpy
- From: "Al Warfield" <warfield101@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "Audubon Listserve" <va-richmond-general@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 25 Sep 2005 10:34:51 -0400
Early Friday morning I went outside to get our newspaper as usual. When I
walked onto our deck to go in the back door I saw a hawk sitting on the deck
rail. Near it was a squirrel with a very bushy tail and a big wound in his
side. We call him Super-Squirrel because he is the only one who has been able
to jump to our feeder setup. (I think it must have been a Red-shouldered Hawk
that caused that wound.) The hawk sitting on the rail was a Sharp-shinned, and
it just sat there even though I was only 15 feet away. The squirrel then walked
right up to the hawk, which only reacted slightly by turning a little toward
the squirrel. I went inside and woke Linda up & told her to hurry and see what
was going on. The squirrel slowly walked to the other end of the rail.
I then opened the kitchen window and took several pictures of the Sharpy, which
was holding one foot up. The foot was protruding through its breast feathers.
After both of us got several shots I decided to see what would happen if I went
outside again. We were a little worried about the foot. I walked to within less
than 8 feet and sat down on a bench. I didn't have the camera then, but have a
great image in my brain of the morning sunlight on its face. The bird became
wary and put the foot down next to the other, but stayed there for a few
seconds while I spoke softly to it. It was apparently OK. Then it flew to a
branch of the Basswood tree nearby. No need to call ARK for this bird! The
pictures are terriffic. I'll post them on our website for you to see. Wait
until noon before logging into the site.
Later we had a very frumpy but also frisky juvenile Carolina Wren come and sit
on the same deck rail and I got several decent shots of that too, which I'll
add to the site as well.
Al & Linda Warfield
http://community.webshots.com/user/warfiea
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