Just another afternoon in the inner-ring suburbs:

[captainsblog]

We got home from church moments ago (Eleanor stayed home on account of the cuppa coughies she's still nursing), and although the dogs could go out (and did) anytime they wanted to before that, our arrival sparked a renewed need for them to commune with nature out back.

More so than usual, in this case, for I saw something inspecting the ground in the back corner of our yard. A very large something. Before I let the dogs out, I waited for it to confirm my suspicion, and I was right:

A red-tailed hawk.

Don't you dare think you can have that for lunch, I exhorted as the dogs headed out the door. No, I was not talking to the dogs.

Hawkeye headed up to the top of the nearest telephone pole and perched. Moments later, it was joined by a second, equally beautiful one.

This is why I never complain about the amount we spend on bird seed. You can go to church all you want and not see the presence of God that close to you.


ETA. Emily got a picture. The hawk was here through the whole time I was writing that:


----

I got a second-hand remark, conveyed through Eleanor, that my revised page layout is harder to read than the previous one had been.  I didn't realize that, but I'm not quite ready to switch it back (although I'll check some of the other variants on the current layout to see if there's a contrastier one). In the meantime, the quickest fix would be to start reading her blog if you're not already- plantmom- and then click on her friends link. Yeah, this one. You'll see all of my entries there that you could see anyway, in a nice dark-gray-on-white font, along with plenty of other interesting voices from other interesting rooms.

Now to go tell Sally that because she probably STILL can't read this:)

Comments

[bluesilverkdg.livejournal.com]

WOW. That is amazing. Did it take out any of your birds? Hawks are gorgeous and I love them, but it always breaks my heart to see one carrying away a much smaller bird. Still...I realize, that's just the way things go sometimes. :-/

I need to post the pictures my mom took of the owl that has taken up residence in one of their trees. Birds of prey are so magnificent, it's just breathtaking.

[captainsblog.livejournal.com]

Apparently, Eureka (Emily renamed her, having decided she was a she) was having a nice meal of Squirrel a laMud at the time of her visit. Our neighbor, the one who was having trouble reading my page, was similarly tender-hearted about that, but we all just held hands and sang "Circle of Life" from Lion King and she felt better.

We'd never have gotten a picture in flight, but we got to see it, and man is that wingspread gorgeous.

[plantmom.livejournal.com]

I'm sure, by the way, that the kill occurred in our yard because I've been extra-careful about keeping the birdfeeder filled out back. We have a lot of traffic, birds and squirrels. So some predatory birds were bound to show up. We had a marsh hawk one year, I remember. They're unusual in that they hunt by sound rather than sight, so they hunt far lower in the sky than other hawks. They have "dishes" of feathers around their eyes, just as owls have, which help collect the sounds just as satellite dishes do. Awesome animals.
This hawk was an amazing sight.

[thanatos-kalos.livejournal.com]

I'm jealous-- a hawk is good luck in Iroquois belief! :)

[snowy-owlet.livejournal.com]

1. "Cuppa coughies"! I love it!

2. Now I wish I were Iroquois, given how frequently I see hawks.

[luckycee.livejournal.com]

You can go to church all you want and not see the presence of God that close to you.

Beautifully stated.

[ellettra.livejournal.com]

NEAT!!!