Saturday, April 8, 2023

Confusion, clarity, mystery in 2 minutes

 At first glance, I thought I saw three vultures, circling higher than usual over Barbashela Creek. But two were not vultures.

For an instant, I was trying to figure out what was wrong — their way of flying was wrong, the shape of the wings was not right. … And then one started screaming, and the other screamed back: two red-tailed hawks.

They “buzzed” the buzzard, flying in close. Off the poor buzzard went.

Since then, I’ve been wondering: What had I seen?

Had the buzzard discovered a wounded animal or a fresh kill, something the hawks were interested in? Had they simply stolen his meal?

Or was there a carcass on the ground that had attracted some small scavengers that looked appetizing to hawks?

Spring is lovely, but the foliage is already dense enough to interfere with our lines of sight. I saw the hawks descending toward the creek, but that’s all.

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