A couple years ago I was watching the bird feeder out the kitchen window. A small hawk of some kind came around the house doing 60+ and snagged a ground feeder so fast that I hardly saw it while watching it.
Probably a Coopers Hawk or Sharp Shinned Hawk. I have had Coops nesting here for 40 0dd years. That's their preferred attack mode. They'll spot prey from a distance and next thing you know the lightning strikes! They love my yard because I have enough of the right kind of trees and enough prairie species that the birds really like it. Makes for good food supply for the Coops chicks and an easy picking setup. I have had my dogs down under Peregrines and Peregrine/Gyr crosses and they are fun to watch, but Coops, Sharpies and Gos' are just plain astonishing Once I got to watch a Gos light out after a rooster pheasant one of .my dogs had pointed. The Gos was sitting in a big red pine, and when that rooster started off the ground he came out of the red pine with the after burners lit and flew that rooster right into the ground. The grass was high enough I couldn't see hit hit the rooster, but neither came back up while watched and waited. I have seen Gos take a number of grouse. It' just unbelievable to see them just fly the grouse down.
