This past Thursday I happened to look out the window and noticed this juvenile Cooper's hawk on the ground below my feeder. This bird has been a regular visitor lately. I had placed a humane (don't ask me why) rat trap there and covered it with a board to make the rats feel more comfortable around the trap. I noticed the hawk walking around the board, peer under it a few times and actually try to crawl under it without success. Finally it laid down on its side and reached in under the board with its foot and pulled out a baby rat the was apparently trying to hide. My custom is to always have a camera set up at an open window facing my feeder and it paid off - again. The light was very poor (in the shade) so I had to use an extremely slow shutter so many of the images, especially the action ones, were blurry and not worth processing but I did get a few with the hawk standing with the rat in its talons. I put a couple on my website in the Recently Added
Images gallery for those who want to have a look.? www.rlkimages.photoshelter.com
heers,
Bob Kothenbeutel
Woodinville
viper.bob at frontier.com