Place Entry #5 - Birds, predator and prey

In an effort to stay on topic and keep my entries interconnected, I chose a place where I knew I could find more firsthand interactions with birds and I didn't have to go far the woods at my house are home to dozens of bird species.  I sat and I listened, and I observed, and I touched.  I was happy to see the robins are back.  I've noticed that they're virtually nonexistent during winter months, especially when there is snow on the ground.  After all, how can ground birds get worms with layers of snow on the ground?  Anyway, the robins are back, in my yard at least.  Although I'm viewing them through the foliage and branches of the woods, I sometimes see them scavenging the ground, although I hear them more clearly than I see them.  I love their song: melodic, calming, short and sweet.  The robins I am seeing are participating in their usual behavior, jumping to each patch of grass, cocking their head to listen to the ground.
But inside the woods, there's so much life.  Chickadees, cardinals, blue jays, titmice, woodpeckers, all have their own song.  I know them all, too.  After I sit long enough, the birds begin coming back after the initial disturbance of my entry into the woods.  Crunch, crunch, go the skeletal leaves as I stepped on them, over them, slowly.
I sit on a log, stretching across a few feet, as if placed there by human hands, not the blows of a windstorm long ago. These skeleton leaves blow around with the breeze as I realize how green everything is, green is so much better than white.  And white is what I have been used to for several months now.  The green of the foliage on the ground, with slight hues of brown, but mostly green.  This is because my woods are filled with a very evasive, shade-loving, evergreen vine, it covers the ground, and many feet up the tree trunks.  Some trees seem choked out, others seem just fine, as if the vines were simply a protective jacket.  Sitting here in the woods, I notice that the birds, especially the chickadees and cardinals, eat the berries that these vines produce.  Sustenance in an otherwise merciless season when it comes to food supply.  And these vines only produce the berries in the fall through winter.  A smart move: the birds become dependent on these berries during the barren winter season, and the birds spread the seeds around.  Spreading them around in the woods, no doubt, because they are covered with this vine.  Nature always makes smart moves, only smart moves.
Many of the robins, satiated with worms in their bellies, perch on the branches above me.  I am covered in song, blanketed in different voices.  Their songs are unrecognizable by me, but they are beautiful.  Even the blue jays.  I continue to sit.... 15 minutes...and sit.... 35 minutes... and sit.... 45 minutes....
Then I hear a different call: a red-tailed hawk (what luck!!). A somber, yet magnificent song, perhaps my favorite of all bird calls.  It is so different from the others, it is the voice of a predator.  Followed by it are the calls of crows.  Around here they are often chasing the red-tailed hawk, whether for food scraps, or to scare the hawk into not eating any of them. I sometimes wish they would just leave her alone. 
What greater luck! The hawk landed on a branch far above me, but not too distantly in front of me.  I enjoy these moments, I could spend hours viewing a raptor, they are my favorite animal, after wolves.  And they are so patient, while all these little birds are hopelessly skittish in flight and dance and head movement, the hawk is patient, and still.  Perhaps that is the luxury of being a predator, the ability to be sedentary, not having anything to avoid. 
I envy the hawk for its flight, its graceful glide.  Sometimes when I see it fly over my head, it's touching the sun.  And then I envy how warm it must be, touching the sun.  But then, I feel fortunate to view an animal, once a threatened species, now slowly re-emerging as a top predatory raptor, one that takes fairly well to human development.  I do not get to see the local red-tail hawk nearly as often as I wish.
As I sit in the woods, the crows come back and annoy the hawk.  The hawk spreads open its huge, beastly wings and begins undulating them, so graceful, so careful.  I wonder if I could hear them if I were close enough. The sun has finally come out today, and she takes off into the sun, touching it.  The crows yelling at her as she glides.  Stupid crows.