Every evening we walk a circuit of the property, ostensibly for the dogs’ sake — we call this “walkabout”. (The dogs have decided it’s boring and usually go off and do their own thing.) Yesterday, about two-thirds of the way into the walk, there was a flurry in an oak tree thirty or forty feet away, a hawk took off out of the branches, and something dropped to the ground with a loud plop. I went to look and found a half-eaten squirrel. Apparently we had startled the hawk into dropping its meal.

Hawks are part of the landscape here. We have at least three species in residence: Red-Tailed Hawks, Red-Shouldered Hawks, and Cooper’s Hawks. The hawk we interrupted was smallish and may have been a Cooper’s — I didn’t get a very good look, but it definitely wasn’t a Red-Tail because it had a banded tail.

I picked up the squirrel with the end of a stick and threw it over the fence to keep it from the dogs. No photo; I don’t imagine anyone will mind.