We've just had the weirdest storm system hit the Twin Cities. Nothing but thunder storms all night long. Non Birding Bill and I watched the system move through slowly and keep reforming on the local radars. Late last night between storms I could hear the resident flying squirrel chirping loudly. I went to the bedroom window and watched the lightening over my head and during one flash saw the flying squirrel glide from my neighbors towering elm tree to the roof of our apartment building. Within seconds the squirrel scurried down the wall and went straight for the mixed nuts I had ready on the window ledge.

The crows and blue jays have been screaming loudly this morning--louder than usual. For whatever reason our cockatiel is under the impression that she herself is a corvid and when they start cawing she joins in the raucous. Everybody involved seemed more agitated than normal. I was experimenting with the NovaBird Camera (hence the blue jay photo above) when I leaned out the window to adjust it. Two feet away a crow with a Cooper's hawk hot on its tail whizzed right by me around the window. After uttering a four letter word in surprise Non Birding Bill dashed into the bedroom (shouting profanity as you lean out a window from a second story apartment tends to alarm husbands) just as he came in a second Cooper's hawk came along the same path. The two Coops met up and were on either side of the crow and then disappeared into the park a block away. Tag team Cooper's hawk hunting? I thought that was only the sport of Harlan's hawks? Perhaps this was part of a family group learning to hunt?