Tweeters,

I agree.strongly with Barry. Eating is something birds do all the time, and the chickadee eating a caterpillar is no different than a hawk eating a chickadee. Let's not exercise the sort of restriction that stems from "I don't like to hear about this."

Dennis Paulson

Sent from my iPad

On Apr 19, 2012, at 9:02 PM, Barry Ulman <ubarry at qwest.net> wrote:

> Joel,
>
> I beg to differ about posting the killing of birds by raptors on Tweeters. For one thing, Rob's description of the capture of that chickadee did not strike me at all as graphic. Even so, reports of bird behavior add interest to the listserv; predation is just one of many forms of behavior discussed here, and I feel that it has as much of a place on Tweeters as other things such as courtship, nesting, migration, or anything else.
>
> Barry Ulman
> Bellingham, WA.
>
>
>
> On Apr 19, 2012, at 8:35 PM, Joel Haas wrote:
>
>> I love Rob's posts. He is such a great observer, and a great writer. But his current observation stimulates a personal comment.
>>
>> I am squeamish and feel that graphic descriptions of birds being killed by raptors should be excluded from "Tweeters" (like killings by mist nets, cats, hunters ). Yes, I know it is "normal"....but so are other off limits behaviors, "statistically normal" in terms of population, i.e. people or pets who do those things.
>>
>> Argue with the logic and math if you wish. But then defend the horror of a description of a bird being killed.
>>
>> Rob's description of startling a Great Blue Heron a while back and its reflexive defecation are OK by me.
>>
>> Argue if you wish.
>> Joel E. Haas
>> haas.joel at mindspring.com
>> Redmond, WA
>>
>> On 4/19/2012 8:09 PM, Rob Sandelin wrote:
>>>
>>> Today I was reading Feathers by Thor Hanson and had put the book down to stare out the picture window. (If you haven?t read this, I HIGHLY recommend it). A chickadee came wandering into view on the cedar tree. It bounced out to the tip of the branch and then from out of nowhere was a blur of motion from above and all that was left of the chickadee was a couple of feathers that slowly drifted down. Somewhat stunned, I ran to the window and below on the ground was an accipiter, not sure which one, who was just taking off back into the shadows hence it came. Had I been reading I would have missed the whole thing as it all transpired in the window frame in about 2 seconds time. Life is short, pay attention.
>>>
>>> Rob Sandelin
>>> Naturalist, Writer, Teacher
>>> Snohomish County
>>>
>>>
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