Recently my girlfriend Rachel and I were riding through the panhandle when suddenly, about 100 feet ahead of us, a hawk dove down upon a small animal and flew off with it. We sped after the pair, catching glimpses of the hawk through the trees. Then we saw it fly out into the wide street, and it was home free. And it was dinner time.
All of a sudden, a second hawk flew in from above, knocking the first hawk so hard it was forced to veer back into the trees and drop it’s prized dinner, right beside the bike path.
We rode up slowly and spotted the hawk sitting in a tree just feet from where it had dropped the animal. There was no sign of the second hawk. We were close enough now we could see it was a Red-tailed Hawk, but we still couldn’t find the animal that had managed to escape it’s talons.
Then we saw it move — a brown, fuzzy, shivering little burrito-shaped gopher, huddled in the leaves. It was confused and hurt, and when it noticed us it ran to the shadowed trunk of a large redwood, instinctively looking for cover.
Suddenly, and with belligerent disregard for our presence, the red-tail swooped in, grabbed the unfortunate critter for a second time, and flew off and out of sight. Now, finally, it was dinner time.
In a moment of brilliance Rachel whipped out the camera and snapped this picture of me, just as the red-tail recaptured the gopher.
Tags: red-tailed hawk
