Date: Thu, 6 Sep 2001 20:03:18 -0400 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Les Roslund Subject: Nature Takes its Course MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit For the past several days, a Yellow-billed Cuckoo has been calling regularly around my yard. This morning, around 10:30, it was along my driveway somewhere well hidden in a grapevine-covered cedar tree, but still putting out the frequent call. Yesterday, that bird had actually growled at me! It was near the same cedar tree, about 8:30 a.m., and had just caught some quite large insect when I came along. It lit in a shrub about 20 feet from me, and proceeded to give several gutteral growls. All the time, it retained the big insect in its bill. Eventually it moved into more dense shrubbery. But the growling continued - perhaps just a victory call as it ate the insect. This evening, the visit came to an end. Around 7:00, as I was driving past the same cedar tree, a hawk burst out across the driveway, carrying something, which it dropped as it sought gain altitude and get out of my sight. I saw the bird drop - jumped from my car and rushed through the poison ivy to the spot where it fell - and sadly to say, found the remnants of that lovely Yellow-billed Cuckoo. The hawk - by size and flight appearing to be a Cooper's, had devoured all meat off the neck, and was in the process of invading the chest cavity when dinner was disturbed. Head, wings and tail were still in pretty good shape - but this certainly was a sad ending for that lovely bird. (I suppose the Coop was disappointed too.) Nature can sometimes be pretty rough! Les Roslund Lroslund@bluecrab.org Talbot County Easton, MD ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================