in the wilds

While Tobias was putting together his mickey mouse puzzle this morning, I noticed some commotion out the back door just beyond the deck. To my shock, a red-tailed hawk was sitting about 12 feet from us with one of our chipper chipmunks in his talons. He stood at least 15 inches tall and was BEAUTIFUL (despite holding a lifeless chipmunk). He looked from side to side a couple times and took off up into our oak tree holding his breakfast. I quickly unfroze and fumbled for the binoculars. By the time I looked back out he was making a large loop around the tree in the yard behind us and he was gone.

Unfortunately the whole event happened too quickly for Tobias to realize. We see the hawks at the park about 1/2 a mile away, but never in our 40x110 property! I'm trying to imagine the bird leaving his nest this morning traveling up North Vernon Street a couple blocks, passing the garbage truck and the school buses, and then spotting something scamper across our deck. The chipmunk was probably on his morning rounds of gather helicopters that fall in abundance from our neighboring trees. He was trying to decide if this collected seed would be for immediate consumption or for storage. Hope he opted for enjoying the fruits of his last expenditure of energy. As his friends scurried about with in minutes of our observance of the food chain, I wondered if they noticed someone was missing.