And the bird stories continue

Yesterday, I opened the door to hand Bailee the yardstick to check the snow totals.  The minute I opened the door, a mourning dove flew IN the house. I had immediate visions of a replay of the night before with blood splattered all over my house...He flew around a bit.. trying to escape through the skylights, windows and doors and finally settled in by the tree...of course.  Jess managed to catch him so we could assess his mental and physical state....and take pictures!  Another crisis averted.  Off to the den to assemble a Santa house. The three of us were all working intently on making our project perfect when............. a Red Tailed Hawk swooped onto the porch, grabbed a bird near the feeder and flew up into a tree.  Wow.. talk about survival of the fittest!  I was feeling a bit guilty as all my feeders literally provide sitting ducks for this hook-beaked predator.  I headed to the Internet to do some research and low and behold....Big birds will, indeed, eat little birds... and not so little ones too.  Hawks enjoy dining on titmice, chickadees and even mourning doves..... No wonder they were spooked the past couple of days... I'll bet they knew he was around.  I had many of them huddled by the patio steps and doorways.  Maybe a birdbrain isn't something unintelligent afterall.

The other pix are my resident red bellied wood pecker and one of my many downy woodpeckers!