Tweets - over the last few days, we've had stories about Bald Eagle raiding a
crow's nest, Red-tailed Hawks raiding crow's nests, Bald Eagles raiding Great
Blue Heron nests, crows killing a robin, etc., etc., etc.

To that, I can add that twice last Thursday at Marymoor, I witnessed Red-winged
Blackbirds trying to chase a Great Blue Heron away from the vicinity of their
nest. In each case, the male blackbird was hovering and/or landing on the back
of the heron and pecking at it. The implication of this behavior is clear -
Great Blue Herons must be known to occasionally reach in to a blackbird nest
and snack on babies.

It's a bird-eat-bird world out there.

Generally speaking, it takes more brains, creativity, and specialization (i.e.
better eyesight, talons) to be a predator than to be prey. These are qualities
that we value in the human species. It seems hypocritical to damn crows or
hawks for posessing these "virtues". And it is artificial and unnatural to
pretend that all species could all just "get along".

== Michael Hobbs
== Kirkland WA
== hummer at isomedia.com