Camera? What Camera?

I have clouds of house sparrows in my yard this time of year.

When they converge on the feeders, they empty them in a matter of minutes. I’m tryng to walk the thin line of putting food out for the mourning doves and other (real) birds, while trying not to feed house sparrows. It’s not working particularly well so far.

I put up a niger feeder for the finches, and a peanut feader for the nuthatches. Both had sparrows on them shortly after I put them up. While talking to a birding friend yesterday, I jokingly wondered where my friendly neighborhood merlin was when I needed him.

Monday was a sunny fall morning for a brief period before the rain clouds moved in again, so I was having coffee on the deck. My camera was on my lap, and I was keeping a close watch on the black oil sunflower feeder near the back of the yard. It’s a busy little spot these days.

Because of my presence on the deck, the house sparrows were all off pouting in the saskatoons and lilacs.

Suddenly, as I was looking towards the back of the yard, I heard a great comotion in the lilacs 10 feet to my right. With his back to me, a merlin had flown in and captured one of the sparrows. With his morning meal secured, he flew right past my head so close I ducked, and away.

And I, great photographer that I am, sat there and watched the whole thing in frozen awe.

After he flew away, I thought oh, yeah, camera…

Nature 1 – Photographer 0