Hawk

For several months, we’ve had a “hawk buddy”. It’s a
Red-Tail Hawk, and we’ve seen several hawks raised up on the mountain behind
our house for several years now. One of my favorite events I’ve seen in the
raising of the hawks was about a year ago, when the parent hawks were teaching
their fledgling who had just learned to fly well to “dive bomb”! It was so
cute: the parents sitting on top of the tall oak trees watching while their “baby”
practiced bulleting down from the blue sky to the mountain tree-tops. Carter,
Ammon, and I started calling to the hawks last year, and, believe it or not, it
has answered us a time or two. One time we had not heard it all day, we started
calling it, and in two minutes, it called back to us from our neighbor’s yard. So,
thusly, we started calling it our friend.

Last Sunday evening, we were swimming in the pool, and out
of the corner of my eye I could see Hawk darting through the tree-tops between
our house and our closest neighbor’s house. I turned to Carter and Ammon who
were enjoying a great swim, and I said, “Hey, you two! Hawk is flying around.”
In a about a minute, I saw it again circling above with something in its
talons. In an excited tone, I continued, “I think Hawk has something to make a
nest!” I kept looking, and then it dawned on me, it wasn’t a long piece of
straw or stick, it was snake! I had seen animal-nature specials on televisions
where eagles and such catch animals like this, but I had never seen it live with my own eyes. It
reminded me of the Mexican national flag with its golden eagle destroying the
viper in its talons sitting on the nopal. It was a neat, nature moment. We just
hope it was a rattlesnake or a copperhead! ;o)

(This isn’t our photo, but it gives you a visual of what we saw)