(click on image for a full view of the aftermath)
I got home from work this evening, checked the backyard feeders and discovered quite the scene had taken place sometime earlier in the day. The strategy I mocked on Sunday was pure folly on my behalf - I showed little respect. The predator of the yards had been at work and left its calling card. But none of the other birds at the feeder paid any concern now, sort of reminiscent of the relationship between Moorlocks and Eloi from H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine. The brutality that transpired is not even a memory as doves and finches feasted on safflower and sunflower. There is one less Mourning Dove and the Cooper's Hawk lives another day.
Who trusted God was love indeed
And love Creation's final law
Tho' Nature, red in tooth and claw
With ravine, shriek'd against his creed...
-- Lord Alfred Tennyson
Feather images © 2005 Michael Allen McDowell
