One of the local Cooper’s or sharp-shinned hawks as managed to catch a robin.
I know it was one of these two species, because the remains were in dense woods. Those two species are specialists at hunting bird in forested terrain.
I could tell it was an American robin by size of the feathers and because there were a few orange chest feathers mixed in.
Well, you can say they waste very little. My firsst encounter with a red tailed hawk some years ago revealed this to me. However, this hawk (called little eagle by Cherokees) decided to thank me for cutting a field where he found himself lots of food supply. So he killed a rabbit and neatly left it on fencing near the house. I did not understand the gift or bid that had left it.
I just finished reading Tristan Gooley’s recently published book ‘Natural Explorer’. Your recent posts are reminding me of that book because of the main premise that the book is based on – the days of exploration is over, but the days of foraging deep relationship with nature have just begun.
Eddy our neighbour has an elaborate array of bird feeders in his garden; one being a nut feeder with an outer cage of wide spaced mesh so the small birds can get inside and eat the peanuts without being attacked by sparrow hawks (they that fly low and fast like second world war spitfires) Sadly the design proved faulty as the hawks are able to just get their heads through the outer mesh and eat the tiny birds insitu whilst they are trapped up against the inner mesh containing the nuts. Eddy tells me he has complained to the manufacturer of this avian death trap – which has been made redundant.
Meanwhile some success on our side of the fence as a family of five blue tits, which emerged from a nest box beneath our kitchen window, have stayed around the garden to eat from the feeders which helped sustain them earlier while in the nest. Feeding birds, especially in the winter, is a major hobby amongst the British. Is it like that in America? Selling feeders, seed and nest boxes here is a serious business for the garden centres.
Feeding birds and squirrels is a big thing here.
You can buy squirrel feeders that put out cracked corn (chipped dried maize) for them.
My grandfather, as he was dying of cancer, would sit in his living room and watch all the birds and squirrels as they came into his feeders.
They were quite a comfort.
Peter, we N. Americans use a wide variety of bird feeders to attract the larger number of species endemic to our continent. In my yard I have platform feeders, so-called squirrel-proof feeders, thistle feeders, oriole feeders and hummingbird feeders. Each attracts a given selection of species–although some will only feed on the ground. I also have a large number of native fruit bearing trees and bushes to attract fruit eaters like American Robins, Bluebirds, Mockingbirds, and Cedar Waxwings and a wide selection of mast-bearing trees and shrubs for other wildlife. BTW: in past winters I would put our old catfood on one of the platform feeders and a Red-Shouldered Hawk (a type of Buteo) would regularly come to eat.