I was recently eating cereal when I heard an unfamiliar shrieking (bird) noise coming from our backyard. When I heard it again, I had to see what it was. I thought the Northern Flicker that was here the day before had returned, but the noise was not that of a woodpecker.

Upon looking out, I didn't see anything and all was quiet. Our yard is usually filled with backyard birds, so I was unsettled as I continued to finish my cereal. I was still bothered by what I heard, so I decided to go look through my bird blind (my upstairs window in our laundry room, now covered with dark material) When I looked out, there was a juvenile sharp-shinned hawk (aka sharpie) finishing its own meal. Upon seeing this, I realized that what I heard was the kill. The small bird it was finishing up, was one of my very own backyard birds. Thought it saddened me, I know its just "nature's way" to quote Steve Irwin.

I took some images from upstairs and then when it flew down to the fence from up on my trellis, I took more of it on the fence as it proceeded to clean his beak by rubbing it on the fence; a behavior I realized I hadn't seen before.

There are probably more images in this sequence than most people care to look at, but I know there are those that will appreciate the sequence. I hope you enjoy looking at the images, whether you view 1 or all of them.

I have more birding and raptor images on my website. If you want to go there, just hover over the slideshow and click on Visit Gallery. From there you can go to my home page. There are birds in my Portfolio and View Only Galleries.