Today, I returned to my school to check up on the Red-tailed

hawk with a taste for seafood. Armed with the camcorder, I intended

to sneak up on the site of the gull's untimely demise.

Unfortunately (fortunately?), I ran across the hawk much sooner

than expected.

About two hundred yards from the gull corpse, in a grove of

Douglas fir next to a baseball diamond, I surprised the hawk again.

This time only a couple of fleeting glimpses as it fled. But it

left much evidence behind. First I noticed a lot of light colored

feathers. Then, nearby, another gull corpse. This one too, appeared

to be a first winter bird.

The first kill was still in evidence, though it was scattered

quite a bit. Remnants of the skull and one foot were still visible,

but not much else but feathers. It occurred to me that it had been

merely moved to the other locale, but the new bird still had a head

and both feet.

A co-worker suggested the possibility of kids shooting gulls

and the hawk scavenging. I'm not denying the possibility, but it

seems like there are usually too many people nearby for them to get

away with firing a gun.

A man had been working on his golf stroke nearby without

disturbing the hawk.



Michael Brown

MBEB1215 at delphi.com

Puyallup, WA