As I was getting out of the car this afternoon, and walking around the corner of the house to the front door I heard a small commotion in the grassy triangle across the street. Something rustled in the trees and then thumped on the ground. Walking across the street, I saw a hawk in the grass. I assumed at first that it was injured as it had it wings spread and seemed to be limping along the ground. I quickly realized that it was not a limp at all, but that it had a squirrel gripped in its talons. I always carry a small camera with me and I took a few quick shots of it on the ground. The camera doesn’t have a good zoom capacity, so I took a chance and went in the house to get my video camera.
When I returned the hawk was still there seeming to be looking for a place to consume its prey. After a moment or two it flew down to the end of the cul de sac landing in a tree. Waiting there but a moment longer, it hopped over to an adjacent roof and proceeded to consume the squirrel. I did manage to catch a little video in spite of the cold fingers and my jittery focus.
I was thrilled to witness this more than anything. One would think that living in the ‘inner city’ that the wild life would be restricted to birds and a few squirrels and other rodent. Surprisingly, this is not the case. And while we aren’t seeing deer and bear, I have had occasion to see wild turkeys, and there is a large family of skunk that occupy the neighborhood. There are also reports of coyote sightings in some parts of town. So I guess that I should not be surprised to see a hawk acting out the fundamentals of its existence.
A little postscript here: This is my first posting in months. I think I got to the point where I had other things to do besides hear myself talk to myself. Now that the weather has cooled off I think I will be more prone to filling my time with endless babble.
