I had high hopes when Ralph Greenslade sent this sequence of a red-tailed hawk in action. High hopes that dinner was a backyard squirrel.
This is the first of a sequence of five shots of the red-tail in a Glenview backyward.
Ralph, an editor and slot man on the Sun-Times sports desk, e-mailed,
I thought you may be interested in some photos of a red-tail hawk that I took Tuesday through my living-room window.
Oh, I always am.
Here’s the setup:
It was about 2:30 p.m. Tuesday when I looked out the front of my house in Glenview and saw something weird happening about 25 yards away near our neighbor’s tree. I grabbed my camera, put on the 300 mm zoom, and took 12 shots of the red-tail hawk devouring something … perhaps a squirrel? I haven’t traversed through the snow to check out the carcass. I shot the photos from the comfort of my living room. I only wished I had followed through and cleaned my windows on a warm day in December like I had planned! And … if the tree hadn’t been in the background, perhaps the photos would have turned out better. The hawk took off and landed in another neighbor’s tree. Nothing like a little outdoors fun from the comfort of your living room.
It’s my life.
Unfortunately, I say unfortunately because I had hoped dinner was one of the backyard rodents, Ralph sent this a couple days later:
Upon further review, I don’t think the hawk’s victim was a squirrel, unless squirrels come with feathers these days. Must have been some sort of bird, but I didn’t get close enough to make a determination. My CSI ability is limited to using the TV remote control.