note: my RP by comment is still going. see this post.
I’ve seen falcons and possibly other small birds of prey at a distance a number of times, but IDing them? Forget it. It’s small. It’s streaky on belly. It has lil markies on its lil face. It could be literally any falcon and if you aren’t 100% sure about the face? Small hawks too.
Then on March 26th, one killed and ate a Eurasian collared dove on my front lawn, leaving only tawny feathers, blood, and one funky magenta foot. Lots of people have seen this kind of thing, sometimes more than once, but it’s the only time I’ve seen it. The bird was pretty bold, which let us get some shitty pictures of it. Here’s the suspect beside a near identical one from some yewchoob man’s video. An adult female merlin?
I was surprised the crows, which are not shy about mobbing much larger hawks and eagles, gave this little beast a very wide berth. Maybe they saw the death blow and it was scary to behold. I know I’d be freaked out to see a bird dive bombed out of the sky and ripped to pieces alive while still stunned. Lucky me, I did not have to watch that happen. I’m confident the victim was taken on the wing tho, because eurasian collared doves pretty much never land in my yard, flying high above it.
The crows were flying rather oddly, which was the first hint I was coming around the corner into a freaky scene. Part of that may have been the weather; a thunderstorm broke out within a half hour of the kill. The crows had wings and tail feathers fully fanned, and were floating around all strange. But it was so weird, right after I saw the little murderer on my lawn, I glanced around for the crows and they were nowhere to be seen.
The tiny monster was so intent on defending its kill that I was able to walk around, try to find my husband, and bring him back. Then my husband took the pictures and a short video, which is where the stills you see here come from. To the right here, you can see the great escape. She finally got annoyed with our shenanigans and flew away with a big chonk of meat.
Vaya sin dios, you funky killing machine.
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