These birds are doing one of two things

I go out my front door a couple mornings ago, it's nosehair-freezing cold and I see a commotion underway, which looks to be a little chickenhawk or some such bird tussling with another bird out on the snow.

The snow, I say, the snow's so deep the farmers have to jack up the cows so they can milk 'em.

The snow's not really all that deep and this probably isn't a chickenhawk, but if both were true then that Foghorn Leghorn quote would have been about the best thing ever.

Before I got my camera the bird underneath was flailing its wings all around and what I thought was going on was some Trials of Life action on a cold morning with a hawk-like creature having picked off a quail, which bobble around my yard a lot.

It looked like the bird on top was eating the bird on the bottom. I mean, look at this –

But then top bird flew off and I expected to see it carrying a quail. 

Instead, now there were two of the same looking birds and they were flying around all zippity together, like everything was fine.

So I thought . . . no, it can't be. Surely romance can't be in the air when the air is single-digit cold.

Can it?

There are worse ways to stay warm, I guess.

So I went to investigate and found the wing fluttered snow with a little dislodged feather and a spot of blood.

Can't really see either in this photo, but I don't know how to photoshop in yellow circles to point this stuff out.

So I don't know what those birds were up to. Either (edited) or fightin', I guess.