Arlo and Janis by Jimmy Johnson for March 06, 2016

One year we put up a bunch of bird houses and had a bumper crop of baby birds that we were lovingly watching as they began to learn how to fly, Then, like a Hitchcock movie,…it all turned into a Blue Jay buffet!

The local Hawk around where I live don’t go after birds, last time he went after a baby rabbit that I saved from a cat. I almost wish he had gone after a bird or two.

It’s a bird feederThat’s what it didFed the hawkDown its throatThe other birdies slid

Are we the only specie that shows concern for the welfare of other specie? We are cursed. Maybe we’re making it all more complicated than it needs to be. It certainly can slam our emotions to the extreme.

Well, the hawk likely didn’t do it just to be mean…..

Food chain, everything has its place on it. Can’t fault the hawk for being true to its nature but I’m not sure I would want to watch it feed either.

We are also the only specie that kills just for the joy of killing,

A bird feeder by any other name will taste as sweet…well at least to the hawk it does. One species likes the seeds one species like those who like the seeds.

I’m the opposite. I hate to see the carnage of nature but my wife loves it! “Oh look dear, that hawk is ripping apart that sparrow! Isnt that something!”

Raccoons will kill every chicken in a coop if they can, but only eat one meal’s worth.After throwing leftovers out his back door, my neighbor took to shooting my chickens rather than bother to tell me that they bothered him. I’m out a dozen chickens and years of their eggs, and 500 feet of six-foot fence.

My cat would lie underneath the bird feeder and wait for a one to land besides him. I tried to explain it wasn’t going to happen but he never gave up hope. He was quite sweet but not a Rhodes scholar.

Reminds me of the time I had a front row seat from my parents’ kitchen window to see a Cooper’s hawk fly to their bird feeder. It didn’t catch anything, but it sure scared the bejeezus out of the finches and the chickadees.

Janis looks traumatized! Perhaps Arlo can raise her spirits later on.

My cat lives for the hunt! He enjoys stalking,catching,sometimes torturing his prey.He always eats what he kills except for mice.He has to be desperately hungry to eat mice.I try to intervene in the spring time when the baby rabbits emerge from their Burroughs,with little success.Oh well,it’s just nature I guess.

princevaliant, Your wife is cool……

The human capacity for compassion and altruism is exceeded only by our capacity for blind destruction and short-sighted promotion of our own interests at the expense of everything else on the planet. I suppose one might find some manner of balance in that.

Had falcons and eagles in the reserve behind our house that helped with the feather buddies. Also had a great horned owl that kept the rodent population down as well.

When I was growing up in the ’60’s and ’70’s my folks kept a bird feeder going and never, ever, once, did we see or even hear of any kind of a raptor around. Silent Spring and DDT and they were simply gone, even though we lived near a large nature preserve. Now I keep a bird feeder of my own and there’s a resident Cooper’s hawk pair keeping tabs. They’re amazing to watch: chasing a dove into the window, doing a sharp U-turn and missing that window themselves by a half an inch while grabbing the stunned dove with their feet mid-turn without even looking, they know exactly where they are in space and where that dove’s trajectory was going to land it as they reached for it. When I cleaned the window one came right outside it and studied it to make sure it knew exactly where it still was. Roof rat running down the fence line, and the hawk pounced and that was that. Amazing birds, and I’m so glad they’ve made such a comeback from near extinction.

I swear that Jimmy Johnson is peeking in our window. This happened to us within the last week. The ongoing story line about A & J’s evolving interpersonal relationship also parallels ours.

A couple of years ago I stepped out the back door, and the moment it shut behind me I was confronted with the image of a Cooper’s hawk standing on the lawn, facing me, about 25 feet directly in front of me, holding its prey down with one foot. I froze, not wanting to interrupt the natural course of events.A lot of thoughts flashed through my head in just a few moments. Among them: I wish I’d looked through the door window before I opened it. – Is it just going to stand there staring at me, fly off, or eat right in front of me? – Is that a rat? – If I try to save the prey, the hawk will likely fly off with it anyway. – I hate to interrupt its lunch, but I’d want someone to save me…… So I figured I’d just slowly move closer to get a better look, and when it decides I’m too close it will either fly off with the prey or leave it. It left it, motionless on the ground. So I walked over and found what turned out to be a house sparrow. I gently picked it up, its head dangling like it was dead. It seemed quite dead, but I placed it in a shoebox just inside the garage door and left it alone for a few minutes, in case it was just in shock. I thought that if it did come around it would probably need some nursing, but it eventually woke up and quickly became quite active. So I released it right away, while wondering to myself if it would later ponder the afternoon’s events.

Conservatives only show concern for poor people or the environment when corporate profits are at stake.

@ melangeThe following is from Wikipedia,probably the same source you used. DDT was never banned for malarial use, and its ban for agricultural use in the USA in 1972 did not apply outside the USA nor to anti- malarial spraying.The international treaty that banned most uses of DDT and other organochlorine pesticides,the2001 Stockholm convention on persistent organic pollutants,included an exemption for the use of DDT fot malaria control until affordable substitutes could be found.Mass outdoor spraying of DDT was abandoned in poor countries subject to malaria in the 1970’s and 1980’s;this was not because of govt. prohibitions but because the DDT had lost its ability to kill the mosquitoes.Because of insects very short breeding cycle,and large number of offspring,the most resistant insects survive and pass on their genetic traits to their offspring,which replace the pesticide slain insects relatively rapidly.Agricultural spraying of pesticides produces pesticide resistance in 7 to 10 years! To say that 100’s of thousands of people died as a result of a ban on DDT is ludicrous! You,nor I,deserve to cross over the shadow of Rachel Carson’s tombstone!

A friend of mine calls rabbits “Nature’s Fast Food.” I guess that’s okay because they will have a litter every four weeks and there’s no chance of going extinct.

@Night-GauntNice play on the word Reich.

@luvthempluggersThanks! Now I won’t feel quite so bad about all the baby rabbits my cat is going to eat this spring!