What makes your heart beat faster? Hmmm...? For me, its hearing the shrill cries of the juvenile Cooper's Hawk, while the Red-tailed Hawk screeches overhead.

Yesterday, during a very still moment late afternoon, you know when it's so quiet all you can hear is the flow of blood in your ears? I heard this unusual crashing sound, one that had me running to the back door...!

Behind our vegetable garden, perched haphazardly up in an oak tree was a beautiful, juvenile, light-morph, Red-tailed Hawk, who moments before had just taken a dive on one of our Cooper's... Missed! (Photo credit by Bill Schmoker, 3/07, Colorado)

He let me get so close to him, he was that focused, calling constantly to a family member, who answered faintly from south of his position. He was definitely perturbed! A few moments later off he flew, while the adult Cooper (who had come from out of nowhere) circled above getting his word in edgewise for almost eating one of his offspring! My kind of drama!