Yesterday morning we had all the usual suspects, plus a Northern Flicker that huddled up to the house to try to keep warm (seriously, right there on the top step).
And then everybody cleared out, and fast, because a juvenile Sharp-shinned Hawk showed up looking for some breakfast.
Sharpies are pretty common in this neck of the woods, especially around feeders where the pickings are anything but slim. This morning's hawk let me take a good look while he perched in our tree. He was a small hawk with dark wings and a barred tail, with yellow eyes. After he flew away I went looking through the guide books and Cornell's Birds of North America web site, and learned that juvenile Sharpies have yellow eyes and light eye stripes.
The hawk wasn't the only predator we had in the yard yesterday. Right after he left, Ghost the neighbor cat came to stay a while - I had to flush him out from under one of the chairs.
