DINNER with a RAPTOR

"Anyone who has stopped to watch a hawk in flight will know that this is one of the natural world's most elegant phenomena..." -John Burnside

Dinner time. Lunch time. Any time. For the Cooper's hawk.

Out of the forest. Over the houses it comes. Smack! Collides with prey in the air. Shrieks  stifled instantly.

Then the raptor proceeds to rip it apart.

Feathers. Wings. Torn limb from limb. Fresh.

"The sparrow flying behind a hawk thinks the hawk is fleeing.." 

                           -Japanese Proverb

Rip innards.

Pounce on the body.

"A hawk kills because it is his nature......a man kills because it is his pleasure..." -Darkovan Proverb

See what is left behind.

Slurp up the last parts.

Still warm.

Tasty.

"The wild hawk stood with the down on his beak and stared with his foot on his prey..." -Tennyson

All that is left.....

Are the beak and the feet....

Hum Hum Hummer stays behind and watches. He is much to fast for the hawk.

As does Cordelia. She is much too big for the hawk. And the hawk  gets ready. Another meal awaits...

"Only in silence the word, only in dark the light,only in dying life; bright the hawk's flight on the empty sky." -Ursula K. Le Guin

Photographs 2021