Carolyn and Tweets,

A Cooper's hawk once killed a bantam rooster in my yard. That's what
happens when you name a rooster "Owl Bait." I scared the hawk away by
accident when I came around the corner of the house, but since dusk was
drawing near I left the rooster where he was and put the rest of the
chickens to bed.

I had just been reading stories of big-game hunters and how their quarries
come back to kill sites several times, so I was intrigued by what the hawk
would do. It really hadn't eaten much at all. Sure enough, when I was out
in the dark the next morning, the hawk came swooping back in. I thought it
was going after the other chickens, so I stood up to scare it away. Then
it occurred to me that it might be coming back for the carcass. I tossed
the scrappy little rooster over the pasture fence and went in to watch from
the kitchen window. Within minutes, the hawk came back, and I watched her
eat the entire rooster over the course of the morning. She would grab him
and drag him into the bushes when people walked by on the nearby road. She
couldn't fly when she was done!

So, this hawk remembered where it had killed prey, and came back the next
day even after being scared off twice. Tigers of the air, they are.

Alexia Allen
Wilderness Awareness School
www.WildernessAwareness.org
425 788 1301 x50