How to ruin a perfectly good party

We got about 8 inches of snow overnight so my first order of business today was to go out and clear the snow off the many feeders out back. Happily, it was a light, fluffy snow so the job was an easy one. I came back in and when I glanced out the window to see how many birds were out there enjoying breakfast ... this was looking back in at me! I grabbed my camera (which was still mounted on the monopod), nearly taking Hubs' head off in the process and all the while sputtering .. Coop ... Hawk ... OMG!

No time to check settings, I fired off about 10 shots through the window. Amazing that they came out at all, although I had to fiddle with the exposure a bit in editing. This is the first time I've seen Coop so close to the house - he was sitting on top of the weeping cherry next to our deck ...and conveniently next to two feeding stations and 3 suet feeders. All the while, there was a downy woodpecker clinging to one of the suet feeder, not moving a muscle. The minute I started to open the back door, the Cooper's Hawk took off - and the Downy WP heaved a visible sigh of relief.

A couple of other shots here and here

Wowee! There is just something about raptors that fascinates me. I can't imagine getting a better shot today, so the Blip is in the bag early for a change. I still can't sit for more than about 20 minutes at a stretch, so I'll be back later to catch up with what's been going on around the world of Blip. Thank you for being so patient with my lack of comments recently - hopefully my neck issues will get resolved soon and I can get back to it.

Happy Saturday, blippers!

xxoo
Debbi