Normally on a Friday morning, Joshua and I stay home and play and cuddle and while the day away, while James goes to work. Today, however, we were blessed that Daddy didn’t have to get to work quite as early, so the three of us took a walk down the street (about 0.8 of a mile, one way) to a local diner for breakfast. This is something we now typically do on weekends, so it was a treat to do it during the week. After James and I each got an egg-and-cheese-on-a-bagel and a cup of coffee (his big, mine small), we decided to extend our walk by going further down the street to a ball park.
As we entered the property, I noticed a hawk standing on the ground.
I had to ask James if it was indeed a hawk, because I don’t see them too often, and it was odd to see it at ground level rather than perched up high. Plus, I didn’t have my glasses on… so I have to admit that my thought process was a little like “That looks kinda like a big pigeon, but with fat, white legs. Hmmm. Perhaps it’s actually a hawk…” At any rate, we decided it was indeed a bird of prey. Shortly thereafter, it sprung up to perch in a nearby tree.
All of a sudden, we saw a squirrel running… and the hawk diving! And the squirrel doing evasive maneuvers… including a really impressive jump (at least, I think it was a jump and not a fall from having been picked up by the hawk!)… and the hawk following the squirrel, intent on getting breakfast, diving every now and then. The squirrel got away by scurrying through a chain-link fence, which made the hawk have to swerve up, giving the squirrel enough time to find shelter in a tree.
So, the hawk had to find breakfast elsewhere, and the squirrel escaped that hazard! James and I marveled at how ambitious the hawk was – the squirrel was pretty big compared to the hawk!
It was fun to see a snippet of the circle of life in our own “backyard”. Typically, I only see stuff like that on TV on Animal Planet or Discovery. 
I told Joshua he should be excited to have seen something like that first-hand… then I realized he probably missed the whole thing, being much more intrigued by his own fingers.
Joshua munching on his fingers at 5 months
