Wrong Time, Wrong Place

Shortly after one p.m. on Friday a co-worker came in and said he'd just seen a female pheasant scuttle into a a tangle of shrubbery and vine just outside the door.  I went out to see if I could spot it.  I couldn't, but saw a female Cooper's hawk perched on a tree about fifteen feet away, eyeing the shrubbery.  I went back in; when I looked again the hawk had moved to a tree just above the shrubbery, undaunted even when the mail carrier walked by just five feet away.

Others were watching from offices whose view included the shrubbery.  After half an hour or so the pheasant came out of hiding.  Whoosh! Lightning quick.

Pheasant al fresco for lunch.  Oddly, the hawk tore into only one side of the victim, and, having had its fill, turned its prey over so that the unbloodied side was what we saw after the hawk left; I wondered if it had done this to make the scent of blood less noticeable to other predators. 

At any rate, the murder scene the next day was of scattered feathers -- evidence of a coyote or fox having emptied the larder.