On Sunday my wife and I took our daughter (9 months old )out
to the Woodland Park Zoo. After letting her touch the sheep and
goats at the family farm, we headed over to the Conservation
Aviary and sat down on a bench just inside the Aviary to give
her a bottle.

We were sitting there for a few minutes, and I noticed some
commotion at the back of the Aviary where we were facing.
Something didn't quite look right - the birds in the cage
were quite excited and hopping all over the branches (I can't
remember the species at the moment, but they were blue and from
somewhere in Asia) and it looked like there was something flying
OUTSIDE the cages.

I grabbed my binoculars for a closer look, and sure enough,
a COOPER'S HAWK was flying back and forth between a pole and
some wires outside the cage, trying to figure out some way to
get at the very tempting (and exotic) looking potential meals
inside the Aviary. It tried to figure a way in for several minutes
then vanished just as a couple of crows flew over.

John Chapman
Seattle, Washington
ragweed at igc.org