continuing "birds of prey week"

Yesterday Heather heard a loud thud and looked out to see a small hawk lying in the snow, stunned. It must have been diving after a small bird eating at our window feeder and hit the window, hard. It was alive but wasn't moving. We thought it might have broken its neck.

Heather brought it in, though, and put it in a dark, warm place (covered by a laundry basket just in case it revived). And after about a half hour it was sitting up. The next time we peeked at it, it flapped around frantically. So we slowly moved it to the door and raised the laundry basket. And it flew. It was quite moving to watch it sail gracefully out over the snow.

From what Heather can tell, it was a young sharp-shinned hawk. The picture shows what it probably looked like just before it hit the window. I named it, too. We'll always remember the day we were visited by little Noggin.