Hunting lesson... I think

While sitting at the kitchen table today eating my lunch I saw 2 hawks land on the Ash tree next to our driveway.  I watched for a minute and when it didn't look like they were going anywhere I grabbed the camera and went outside.

Baby is standing.  Adult is in the bottom of the shot checking me out.

Both standing looking up at the birds in the tree.

Looking up at the other birds in the tree.  

Adult

I'm pretty sure it was a parent child hunting lesson.  They stayed for about 2 hours in this tree.  At a certain point the baby (on the right in the above picture) laid down on the branch.

They just stayed there while all the other birds in the tree went bananas.  I started to wonder if they were just trying to stress them out so they would be easier prey?  I took a bunch more pics with Ada when she woke up.  She refers to them as "our hawks"- adorable.

Just so you can see how not wild this area is.  They are in the tree right above my car.  If you look close and follow the bottom right branch the adult is standing just before it gets green.  The baby is on the second big branch up from the trunk towards the right about 5 ft. from the trunk, laying down.

Adult

I couldn't help thinking as I saw them there about how animal babies learn things.  Our human babies learn by imitation of course but we can communicate so much with language.  I was thinking about trying to teach our babies how to feed themselves without talking and at first this task seemed daunting...then we went outside to the garden.   Emma watched her sister picking cherry tomatoes then just went at it.  She didn't need "instructions".

Yes, we told Emma that the red ripe tomatoes were better to eat than the green ones.  But she needed to test this anyway. 

Handing me the green one (Ada gave it to the chicks)

YUM!