HAWK!

My wife was sitting at the table this afternoon and spotted something large at the bird feeder. There was a hawk perched on the metal crossbar that holds the bird feeders. My wife doesn't wear her glasses and she isn't very familiar with hawks in general but based on her description and estimate of the size it was probably a sharp shinned hawk.
Despite the number of birds we have we don't seem to have a lot of hawk activity, partly because there is not a good hunting perch for the hawks to use. By the time this one had landed on the feeders all the smaller birds were long gone.
Some people get upset when hawks take birds around their feeders. My feeling is that it is a true part of the natural order of things and who am I to interfere with that? Usually hawks don't spend an entire day hunting in one location. They may make one or two passes a day through the yard and they aren't always successful.
One thing that I noticed was that all the squirrels scattered too. Maybe if I could talk the hawks into concentrating on the squirrel population we wouldn't lose so many of our flower bulbs.