Had an experience this morning that I have never had... Started out with having a stress test--one of seems endless tests and appts of late. It was cloudy and some drizzle when I left but after the test I decided I needed the excercise so I went anyway to the local metro park. While walking the trail there were some fox squirrels decidely excited about something.. looking around I saw the out stretched wings of a hawk on the ground in front of me.. It hopped on a downed log and I saw it was a red-tailed hawk with a red squirrel it had just got. At this time I was only 20 ft away and it didnt leave. So I took a few quick shots thinking it would fly away.. Well to my suprise it not only stayed, but proceeded to devour its meal as I wandered around almost 360 degrees and getting less then 15ft away at times. Once it finished it hopped up a snag and proceeded to clean its self up and seemed not to care about me as it paid attention to sounds in the woods, It did then fly about 50yds to a taller snag where I again walked over and talked to it and even made a phone call as it watched and listened to various sounds in the woods. It never flew off ---I ran out of memory card and left ..still in awe what I had just watched for the last 30-45 minutes. I will post more shots as I go thru them some may be slighty " disturbing--entrails and such.

Tags:   red tailed hawk km feeding squirrel ground

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Tags:   red tailed hawk km feeding squirrel ground

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This is shot in the wild, this hawk and just finished a breakfast of a red squirrel

Tags:   red tailed hawk km feeding sitting

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After breakfast preening

Tags:   red tailed hawk preening km after feeding DailyNature-TNC11

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Watched this Cooper's in one of the back yard "lakes" , 1st just standing there , then bathing, pretty entertaining

Tags:   cooper's hawk back yard pond puddle bath bathing early morning

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