Cooper's in the Field

Movement, a blur in the edge of view

A whinny of a robin, a flash of a tail

A raptor in full pursuit

Both moving with equal fluidity

But one with an edge of speed

The robin dives fast

The hawk dives even faster

Feathers fly and then float

As the robin loses his tail

He makes a dive to escape

But the Cooper’s is far too fast

They hit the ground

The Coop has won his meal

But the watchers are far too close

And the hawk leaves his prey

Figured I would give the free form a little chance.  The better explanation of what happened is this:

Eamon and I were out tracking our Yellow Rails, when we saw an accipiter flying above the savannah.  We watched it soaring for a minute, and went on to our next bird.  While we were taking the vegetation measurements we needed we both heard the whinnying of a robin coming at us, and saw a flash as we turned to look.  There was a Cooper's Hawk chasing down the robin!  Before we even realized what had happened the Coop had hit the robin once, and in a desperate escape attempt, the robin dove down again.  I should mention that these two were headed straight toward us with only 5 feet of ground clearance.  The robin's dive wasn't good enough and the Cooper's hit the bird about 2 feet off the ground and landed with it.  At this point the birds are 6 meters from Eamon and the Coop decided that is was not a good idea to keep his catch.  He flew off of the robin, and the robin then flew away, only missing some tail and body feathers.  The amazing part about this was getting to see how the tail feathers really flare and move from horizontal to vertical, and everywhere in between, while in the middle of a chase.  The fine tuning of these movements to be able to hit another bird that is attempting to escape using the similar movements is truly amazing, especially when viewed from 10 meters away!