I was taking my dog (a Pom-mix, shelter acquired, name of Indiana) out for her (i think) first, which meant long walk of the day Saturday morning when i heard some wing flapping commotion coming from the other side of my property where the bird feeders are located; only the thistle feeder is being supplied thru 9/15 when i commence with sunflower seeds for the season. All of a sudden a hawky bird came from that area with "something" dark in its talons. It crossed the street and crash landed in my neighbors yard, still grasping the dark something. Next i noticed a light colored, smallish squirrel come running from the same area - the feeder location. It crossed the street and jumped onto a split rail fence, then proceeded to an adjoining taller fence. Both fences were appx 30 feet from where the hawk and dark something were located. The intersection of the two fences was appx parallel to the hawk & dark something location. At this point i was
wondering to myself, what in the hell is going on? Also at this point, i lost sight of the hawk and dark something due to the progress of my walk changing my perspective as well as some traffic on my street distracting my attention. My assumption at that�moment was that these were two separate incidents with no possible connection with each other. When i continued walking, the perspective changed and brought the "scene" back into view. The light colored squirrel was now commingled with the dark something and the hawk was removed 20 or so feet away sitting on a fence post. The dark something wasn't moving much. I had observed before i lost sight of them, the hawk reach down and appear to bite at it once. The light colored squirrel, did not linger long with the dark something and rapidly reversed its path coming back across the street. I remained�motionless about 75 feet from the dark something and 95 feet from the still perched hawk. I watched
the dark something for some minutes, wondering if i should walk over to it, when it suddenly roused itself, revealing itself in its bounding motion to be another smallish, but dark squirrel. It gained the cover of a bush on my neighbors property at which point i observed the hawk to fly away. So was this an instance of squirrel heroism? I'm having a hard time imagining what else it could have been. The distance from my feeders to the crash site of the hawk/dark something is appx 80 to 100 yards. My memory is that the dark something was giving voice to an alarm call as it was being carried away. I only wish i had been able to observe the entire sequence and also that i had been able to capture a video of the event, which i imagine would have gone viral on�You Tube & from the proceeds of which i could comfortably retire - oh wait, i'm already retired :)
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Jim (Michael) Speicher
Broad Run/Burkittsville area
S FRED CO
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