Monday, January 25, 2010

Shredded 'Tweet' for Breakfast


This winter's been hard on me visually. Cold yeah, but where is the snow? I'm visualizing a nice snow storm that I can go out and chase for a few hours, and then a cold front to move in and give me those beautiful, blue skies. Last weekend I was up in the UP of Michigan, hoping that we'd get that kind of weather. No deal - not even on my birthday. It was 30 degrees and heavy clouds that made everything flat.

"So find something else to photograph!" I told myself. "Make it happen." So this morning I thought about doing some flowers in the studio when I was called to the French doors that look out to our backyard. Perched atop our bird feeder was a smaller Cooper's Hawk enjoying some breakfast sparrow. I made this shot through the 3 layers of glass (1 double pane window and 1 storm door) and thought "thank god I cleaned them before Christmas."

This hawk hung around and actually let 3 squirrels feed at the feeder's foot, a mere 6 feet from where the Cooper's Hawk decided to perch for some post-prandial rest. I thought for sure that I was going to get a real 'kill' shot but the hawk just sat on the fence (no pun intended) and waited for more birds to come to the feeder. A few sparrows did a 'fly by' but saw the hawk and kept going.

When my postal carrier arrived, I shared my hawk story with her. She told me about another resident on her route that calls what happened at my feeder, a 'Shredded Tweet.' Now THERE's something to really 'tweet' about on Twitter!

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