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Message: <blockquote data-quote="halftwo" data-source="post: 1342627" data-attributes="member: 45720">Of Merlin, Raven and Sparrowhawk's KillSky icy-blue, frosty iron-hard ground, ice in puddle and furrow to punch crunchily through.Blush of berries in bushes for thrushes and buntings, finches and Robins.And up with a crow on its tail a Raven cronk-ronks away.In like a blurred rocket from the east a Merlin at ninety or a hundred; slightly slanted and flicking to accelerate, but away in short seconds to the west; the flocks are stunned and silent - death has come and gone before the alarm.Up on the hawthorn the Redwings, Chaffinches, Fieldfares and buntings begin to feed again. A Tree sparrow with them. Drab-handsome Yellowhammers and Reed buntings among party-coloured Fieldfares starting to pluck at berries.Then from a silent nowhere a Sparrowhawk slices up from a low attack, up to bush-top and snatches.An explosion of alarms sound and a Fieldfare's gurgles are fading as down to the path, ten short paces away, the Sparrowhawk lands, back to me, with prey.     Beneath her the spotted undertail of the Fieldfare visible, the hawk eyes me unperturbed, hooked bill slightly agape. I freeze in the froze.We watch.Thinly barred leg feathers match her belly, beautiful yellow eye fierce and glassy. Primaries jut from the arc of her closed wings.  She begins to feed as the flocks protest and gather, plucking the bird, gulping gobs of feathery meat.Suddenly spooked she glides away, the Fieldfare brushing the grass of the lane as she goes - just a few yards - to feed again.Away home, putting Snipe up from ice in grass, smiling again.</blockquote>

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