!!! Hmmm, looks pretty content despite the cold!
January 09, 2015 - International, National and Local News
CPF Postmaster Reports:
Jan. 8th - 2014
Thanks to John Little for sending in his recent photo of a feathered visitor that ended up in is backyard to dine. A good shot of a Sharpie, roosting after obviously dining on a fresh meal.
At this time of year, the CPF usually gets hundreds of phone calls and e-mail over the winter months telling us that they have another one of our peregrines in their back yard feeding on all of their winter birds that are utilizing their outdoor bird feeders. If this was actually the case, we would have thousands of urban peregrines around,,, (and that of course is absolutely not the case). At this time of year, most all of the Canada’s wild - (non-urban peregrines) are far to the south on their wintering grounds, with only the resident territorial urban adults braving the cold better weather. And even then, our urban adult peregrines don’t hang around backyards or hunt at these low altitudes below the tree canopies.
In this case, John Little identified his feathered visitor bang-on, as an adult Sharpe-shinned hawk - (which is usually the case with 99.99 % of all of the raptors that are incorrectly identified in peoples back yards at this time of the year, especially here in our northern hemispheres).
We do see a few Coopers hawks, a few Rough-legged and Broad-winged hawks, lots of Sharpies and Red-tails and even the odd Goshawk is being photographed and hanging around. Good gracious, if you could fly freely south to warmer weather with an abundance of free food, why on earth would you stay here in these freezing temps???,, but some do stay and tough it out as evident of the hundreds of photographs that are sent into us each year.
Photographer - John Little
January 2015, Meridian, Idaho USA
