Hawk hyjinks

As my readers well know, TPP has been encouraging top predators to reside in our estate.  This AM our breakfast amusement was watching at close quarters a young red-tailed [?] hawk try to obtain a squirrel for breakfast just outside our kitchen windows. 

The most amusing aspect was the extreme audacity of the squirrels who feeling invincible when in a familiar tree at times actually aggressively confronted the hawk who was quite confused by it all.  What fun!  Although on the whole, too bad the hawk was not winning.

Backyard death match

In answer to one of our top predator wanted ads, a juvenile red-tailed hawk stopped by last evening to entertain us during our cocktail hour (and a half).  This is the biggest bird ever to visit our yard, an impressive beast.  Bird-watching turned into rollicking good fun as we watched this youngster do their level best to obtain a squirrel dinner.   You don't get this type of amusement just every day.  Our hawk moved around the yard from perch to perch, both chasing squirrels up and down trees, and then almost had dinner when a squirrel struck out across the yard and the hawk swooped in from a burr oak.  And while no squirrels actually died in the making of this spectacle (drat!) that one had a very, very close brush with death as both squirrel and hawk dove into a bed of dwarf dahlias (oops!), a very near miss. Mrs. Phactor decided it was not a good evening to take her kitty out for a walk least the two inept predators should meet in utter confusion.  Not a rabbit in sight. 

Don't step on the snake

TPP has several useful rules for tropical field work.  Among the most important are don't sit on ant hills and don't step on snakes.  Large snakes have rules too; eat anything you can catch.  A very large boa was found on one field trip across a 5 foot wide grassy path with both ends hidden by dense vegetation.  It was just a 5 foot long cylinder of snake.  Who knew which direction it was "going" since it was not moving at all.  You leave organisms like that alone. TPP once tripped over an 8 foot boa. It pissed off the snake and shot my adrenaline dangerously high, but neither of us was in any real danger.  That is the old primate alarm system that gears you up for fight or flight when scared or startled.  And that system exists because us primates are prey to a few big predators.  Monkeys are very mobile, very observant, and they don't miss much, so big snakes don't catch monkeys very often, but if the monkey makes a "misnake", it will probably be their last.  TPP has seen a big boa consume a sloth of comparable size, but monkeys are considerably faster.