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We have a young Coopers hawk who enjoys using our backyard bird feeders as a training ground for hunting. He’s not very adept at capture yet, but he sure does give it the old college try.
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He also drives Lord Dudley Mountcatten completely insane. The poor feline is confused. It’s a bird, so he’s fascinated. But it’s a predator, so he’s scared.
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It’s only a matter of time before blood and feathers will be scattered on the ground.
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And while that’s hard to take….
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Hawks really are beautiful creatures.
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And deserve to eat just like the rest of us.
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River's world..... 
I am on Lord Dudley’s side—you touch MY food you die!!!
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Dudley is a mouser, the birds are safe.
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That’s so cool! We have a red shouldered hawk that hangs around in our trees, but never right on the house.
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Our bird feeders are probably 12 feet from the deck… clearly this guy wants first choice.
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Wow…he’s pretty big if you ask me. Charlie is a bird cat if you remember? He killed that annoying mockingbird at our old house, I was forever grateful. Then he started acting like he owned the joint and well….you know the rest. Cats have humans, we don’t own them they own us…lol.
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Life lives on life. My sister supported a runt of a grey squirrel all winter, barely big enough to be a mouse. She fed him well, and he was always hiking the nuts up to his home in the tree behind her apartment. Tuesday a big grey squirrel ravaged the little guy, and took over his home, right in front of my sister who was outside cleaning up her balcony. She has not stopped crying yet. Her HUNTER was the pet she is unable to keep after the new owner of the block changed the rules to no pets! He let people keep their old ones, but would not allow them to be replaced after they died. Her cat owner died 5 years ago and she has been petless ever since, till this winter. Now this one is gone too. If it weren’t for rent controls she would have moved long sgo. But on her pension this place is all she can afford. She lived her whole life with cats, just as I have…
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As have I. That’s sad, a house doesn’t feel like home without a cat.
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As I told my students recently (after reading a book about animal defenses): sometimes we need to root for the lion and sometimes we need to root for the zebra in order to keep nature in balance. But they also know to ALWAYS root for the rabbit.
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And the wombat.
😉
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Well, when you attract half the animal kingdom to your backyard, I guess the predators will also swoop in for a free “lunch”…
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It’s true. We’re an equal opportunity buffet.
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They certainly are beautiful and they have a place in our natural ecosystem. Sorry for the kitty being tortured though…
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I’ve never understood the phrase “giving it the old college try,” because I was a bit of a slacker once I hit SJSU. At least for the first couple of years.
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But the question is…. how hard did you try to slack?
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We have hawks and bald eagles all over. They are SO cool. I once saw an eagle coming up off the lake with a fish in its claws. That was awesome….
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We once had an osprey drop a fish on our windshield as we were driving over a bridge…
🐟
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LOL!! oh dear!!
Unfortunately we smucked a hawk on the way to Winona. Something dead on the road and as we got to it, whooosh! The hawk was swooping down to get it ….. Felt horrible but what can you do?
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Sadly, nothing . In wildlife vs car, car always wins.
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Nature, red in tooth and claw, but I’m okay with both Lord Dudley and the hawk keeping the riffraff in line.
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If only they could rid me of that damned red squirrel.
🥴
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