Dangit!

I just missed getting a picture of a red-tailed hawk in our backyard garden. I was alerted to its presence by the cries of a mob of grackles - a small mob, only about nine birds that I could see; nothing like the huge clouds of crows we get in the fall and winter. I finally went outside to see what all the ruckus was about - was it another stray cat? Was our friendly neighborhood barred owl back? Only to see a distinctively colored shape flap up from one of the garden beds to a better perch - probably our scarecrow (ha! Good use of available tools, bird!).

I immediately rushed to tell Dad, who would definitely be interested in such an occurrence, but he missed the bird by a few seconds as it flew from relatively easy visibility in the garden to the shelter of a pear tree in one of our near-by "pocket prairies", and then to the fence it borders. After half a minute of trying to see it anyway through the branches, Dad gave up and I decided to hunt down my camera to attempt to capture the bird's digital image.

Sadly, by the time I'd located my camera and made it back outside, the hawk was long gone. I have only my memory of the event left, and this story to tell.