The escape

My heart is still racing! Just a few minutes ago the dogs began barking and I heard blue jays screaming outside. I ignored the dogs for a minute but they became more insistent and I've learned to pay attention when they are like that.

I raced outside following them as they ran from the door just as two birds apparently fused together flew up from the ground towards the edge of the property. They only managed about 20 feet of flight and not more than 10 feet in height.

Yelling at the dogs to leave it, I ran over to see what was going on, hearing a jay's mewling cry... and I realized a sharp-shinned hawk had caught a blue jay.

As I drew close the hawk tried to lift the still mewling jay but rose no more than about five feet off the ground to crash land into the snow again barely eight feet away, wings and tail spread, head twisted as it held onto the blue jay. When I was about two feet away the hawk rose in the air but its hold on the jay wasn't strong enough and the blue jay flew away screeching "I'm free I'm free!" The hawk followed swiftly, but I doubt it caught it again.

I seldom interfere when nature takes its course like that, but this time it was going to end badly... the jay was far too heavy for the small hawk which was not quite as big as the blue and gray bird. It couldn't kill it immediately and might itself get hurt in the struggle. Sharp-shinned hawks aren't nearly as plentiful as blue jays around here. So I plunged into the snowbank - in open toed gardening shoes (not too bright since my feet are now freezing!)

The hawk will continue to haunt the area and is likely right now perched in a nearby tree since there are few birds insight anywhere, in trees, bushes or at any of the many feeders around the house. Hopefully it will catch it's breakfast soon. And hopefully too it won't be quite so ambitious as to try to take down a bird bigger than itself.

I've only seen this once before, but it was a successful raid - or at least as far as I saw it - with the sharp-shinned struggling to fly away, a mourning dove in its talons. It reminded me of the prow of an ancient Viking ship - the dove's head still up and very much alive. An image that's burned into my memory it was so strange.

So we've had an exciting start to the day. And I am pleased that the dogs left the two birds when I told them too - a few short years ago that wouldn't have been the case.

And please forgive that I didn't think to take my camera with me  and get a photo of the two crashed birds in the snow (I've used a fall image of blue jays on the deck instead) - I'll never forget the sight and maybe some day will try to draw it. And the lesson for me was of course - always be ready with that camera!

What lesson will you be given the chance to learn today?

Wild food for wild creatures

Walking anywhere in fall is an adventure into the natural order of things. Fall means harvest, the storing up of food for those who must survive in the wild all winter.

Many dream winter away - some people do as well, for that matter, hiding indoors, never venturing into the cold except to quickly shop for groceries and run back to the car. In some places in cities, people can be underground or under protection year round, going from apartment to mall to subway to work to entertainment to meals to home, without every breathing the air outdoors. I heard one young man declare on the radio the other day that he had never seen the stars. Imagine!

Animals on the other hand hibernate, or at least many do. Many birds migrate to where food will be plentiful and temperatures more accommodating. Those that don't, live on what nature provides.

Around my little bit of heaven, the apple trees have been full this fall. The wild grapevines as well. The tops of the spruce trees are heavy with cones, the pines similarly bend their boughs. Hawthorns have held onto the cherry red berries and the black choke cherries glisten in early morning sun or late evenings' soft glow. In the near by bush, beechnut husks litter the ground and black walnuts are so thick they roll onto the driveway and crunch under the wheels of my car.

Crows, turkeys, bluejays and other grain eating large birds scavenge the fields following the combine as it takes down the last of the flax, soy and corn. There will still be lots left under the snow for those who dig down like the turkeys do, or where the wind has scoured the fields.

Along the pathways I find partially eaten apples. Was that Bliss - who loves to scrounge under the trees for apples often picking them right off the tree to devour? Or was it a rabbit or a mouse, mole or squirrel?

There will be lots this winter for those who hang about and need to eat throughout our cold and snowy period.  Many of the trees have fruit at the top - which old-timers will tell you means a lot of snow. We'll see.

In the meantime I check along the hedgerow. Once this was an orchard, part of a farm, long ago broken into pieces, a small square hived off for the local church in which I now live, and other pieces as roads and property boundaries changed as we "progressed."

One of the most interesting things I've found is how some of these wild apple trees have grown.

If you look closely at this mass of branches decorated with a few yellow and green leaves and lots of red apples. You'll notice that there are some yellow apples too... and the branches appear to be entwined. Two trees have grown together winding around each other and the sweetest of all the wild apples come from these two trees. I wonder if its their relationship, or simply the kind of apple they are.

And so they fall - and the deer, rabbits, mice, moles and even the odd coyote if there are any left after the hunters have scourged the woods to get rid of them for the sheep farmers - will likely have enough food if the hedgerow along here is any example. And then come spring, there is always the tasty tips of apple branches to be clipped and enjoyed.

Do you see nature's ways on your walks in our great outdoors?