Date: Wed, 19 Apr 2000 17:34:09 EDT Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Bea Nicholls Subject: Hawk, Prey, and Rescue Squad MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Yesterday (4/18), I heard a bird screaming and then jays shrieking in fro= nt of my house on Middle River. When I looked out, there was a sharp-shinned hawk under the overhang of some cedar bushes. He was mantling what was apparently a still very lively bird. The jays were being somewhat success= ful in dive-bombing the hawk, but were somewhat hampered by the overhanging c= edar bush. As the sharpie tried to move farther under the bush to avoid the attackers, his prey escaped and zoomed into the depths of the bush. At th= is, the hawk hastened off in the other direction. I don't know what species t= he captured bird was, but I did see that it had what seemed to be a black ta= il - perhaps a grackle or starling. Today, I had a common loon swimming on the river, next to my wharf and cl= ose to my bulkhead. Bea Nicholls Middle River / Essex, MD birderbea@aol.com ========================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ========================================================================= ===========================================================================