Dear Fans, Friends, Fiends, Foes and Family,

We live in a town with five military installations; four Air Force and one Army, and we get to see many feats of flying skill quite often, especially when the Air Force Academy is playing a home game in football.  The Fabulous Thunderbirds are here for every graduation as well.  I have seen a lot of different types of things that fly in the air, but when I see what I saw I saw earlier today, it always takes my breath away.  This was the real thing, baby, uh-huh!  Aerial combat at it’s finest and right in the skies over our fair city.  A large enemy had tried to attack one of the smaller, hidden, out-of-the-way spots to attempt to do who-knows-what sort of damage to it when suddenly, as if out of nowhere came a pair of fierce, screaming fighters.

I have seen it before but it amazes me each time.  Here in the Springs, especially out on the eastern high plains, we have a lot of raptors of various breeds and sizes.  Red-tailed Hawks are common, Golden Eagles are seen, many of the smaller falcons, owls, I don’t know what all, live on the plains and often in the green belt areas in town.  Drive up into the mountains at the right time of the year and you will see flocks of Bald Eagles.  The raptors are amazing and powerful creatures, with deadly talons and beaks that could have exacted the pound of flesh for the Merchant of Venice with one pass.  If you have ever seen an animal, say a cat or raccoon that has been killed by one of them you realize that this is a force to be reckoned with.  A dangerous animal that flies high in the sky watching for the movement of its prey, swooping down at a high rate of speed, screeching at the last minute to strike fear in the heart of whatever misfortunate creature it has stalked.

With all that power, I wonder what makes it want to try to rob the nests of smaller birds.  Perhaps they are after an easy snack or what appears to be an easy snack.  I don’t know.  But even as it sits in the tree and readies itself for the strike, out of nowhere comes a pair of screaming sparrows!  Watch out, little sparrows, don’t you know who you are dealing with?  They don’t care.  There is a predator in their tree and they strike.  They fly at the back of his head at a high rate of speed and hit him full force with their beaks.  Again and again until the hawk tries to take flight.  He gets out of the tree but the little birds are above him, taking turns diving onto the back of his head and neck, driving him away from the tree.  They are unrelenting, too.  They are not content to merely chase him a little ways off but rather chase him until your eye can no longer see how far they went.  They do it with crows or ravens, too.  Even though the birds are bigger and more powerful and stronger fliers, the sparrows defend their young with such ferocity that you almost have to wonder which would be better; to get between a grizzly and her cubs or to try to mess with a sparrow nest?

Yours Truly,

Herb (Sometimes Joe Audubon) Thiel