The "Down Under" Birds

   I love feeding the songbirds that are fulltime residents or are migrating visitors to the Bayou.  I consider the birds among my friends so  why wouldn't I share a meal with them?  You can imagine how it wounded me to see that I was fattening them up for the small hawk that is also a resident here.  The Cooper's Hawk found that the birds were easy pickings from the feeders as it sat in the nearby hickory tree.  After finding the telltale feathers of a recent kill, I decided to stop putting seeds in the feeders.  I just could not...would not enable a hawk to have easy access by my doings.  If the hawk caught a bird anywhere else, so be it but I would not make them "sitting ducks", so to speak.  The songbirds did not understand this sudden lack of foodstuffs and often scolded me if I was nearby.  It was a quandary.  Do I neglect the songbirds?  Do I allow the hawk to feed?  Puzzlements.

  Well, things always have a way of working out for the best.  The constant scolding from the cardinals, chickadees and titmice finally convinced me to buy more birdseed.  To semi-protect the little birds I had to come up with a new plan.  I had to outsmart the hawk or, at least, make it more difficult for the predator to feast upon the songbirds.  Now, the birds have gone "down under".  No, I did not send them to Australia.  I simply put the seed under the flower benches next to Puddle Pond.   The smaller birds eat in peace and drink safely from the Pebble Creek under the cover of overhanging plants.  In fact, the hawk seems to have gotten the idea that it would be simpler to look elsewhere for prey.  It has not been visiting as often as it had in the past.  Maybe the birds are tad safer now.