Emberwood Osprey meets weasel

The dumb bird didn't seem to be in hunting mode, at least. Nynka tried to keep half an eye on it anyway as she disgruntledly scraped and scratched at what was turning out to be rather more uncomfortably pebbly a patch of soil than she had entirely bargained for. Ffff...there, now she'd gone and gotten one of the smaller flakes of rock jammed into the base of her claw; great. She glared at the offending toe as she paused in her digging to give it a good hard shake. She squinted and gave it a quick lick to be sure the rock flake was gone before she resumed her punishing attack on the soil.

I eat all the rodents! she said in the meantime, getting more and more careless of the feathery sharp-beaked beast above her as she went. Beside which, having considered the arrangement of the intervening branches and leaves, and even the hummocked-up section of root a short distance away, she didn't think it could very easily get a good angle on her down here with those wickedly long and curving claws. So. ...Ignoring it entirely seemed like a foolish idea, however, and it struck her too that if she kept the thing talking she would not only have an easier time keeping track of its location but also keep it distracted from any thoughts of possibly trying to eat her, or something. (It would also give her a little more time to widen the entrance of this burrow, in a pinch and if worse came to worst, she noted privately to herself as well.) I don't care how fancy or puffed-up any of these overgrown mice are; there's not a one of them that I won't eat if I'm in the mood for it! Okay, well, perhaps talking about meals wasn't really the best tack to be taking if this birdbrain was going to stay distracted, but with the patchy screen of leaves and branches she'd eyeballed above her Nynka was getting bolder. She was still a little more civil to this bird than some of the other and even bigger animals around that she'd encountered, though, mind you, especially with her impatience growing as she continued her fervent digging at the mousehole, here.