Hanging out at home this past Saturday afternoon when a Red-tailed Hawk took a Gray Squirrel in my back yard. We see him (or her) on and off quite regularly and I've found evidence of his kills in the past, like Mourning Dove feathers and skin and a couple of his flight feathers on the ground, but I've never seen him actively eating a kill. He was only about 40 feet or so from my back windows, sitting on my low rock wall behind the pool.
Distracted by Chickadees buzzing around
Tearing a piece off
After the first few shots, I tried out a different angle and decided to try out shooting through my spotting scope that I had sitting around.
You can really see the meat he's tucking into there
Intensity in those eyes, "U WOT M8?"
Head down with a little Myrtle falling over the limestone slab
The characteristic red tail
He finished his lunch, then flew up into my apple tree where he shook the carcass a couple of times, dropped it, and flew up into one of the dead Black Cherry trees back there.
I went out later to examine the remains, and he had eaten only the very best parts of meat leaving the body cavity totally intact and only a few talon marks. The head was completely untouched.
It was funny to watch all the songbirds whizzing around the yard in a tizzy because he was there. I must have had almost a dozen Cardinals taking shelter in the old apple tree.
My 6 year old twins obsolutely LOVED seeing this lovely raptor so close.
Thanks for looking!
Josh