This past weekend I was chilling with family at the trailer as I so often do during the summer. Mom and dad have their trailer by Lake Ontario and as a loyal, loving and adoring son I like to spend as much time with them as possible. Plus mom has always been a good cook and I can never pass up a free meal.
Two of my dad's sisters were also out to enjoy the beautiful scenery and my thrilling and charming personality. They can't resist my charm. Can't really blame them...I'm awesome. Okay, enough with me tooting my own horn. I'm starting to make myself ill.
Any way, it was a typical family gathering at the trailer with the usual chit chat and laughs. One of my aunts had walked up to the bathroom with my dad while I stayed at the campsite. A few moments later I saw her hustling back. I thought this was a little odd since I hadn't seen her move that fast in quite some time.
Sure enough she had a reason. She said there was a hawk up by the bathroom eating a snake and it wasn't in any rush to leave even though people were around watching it.
So of course, I grabbed my camera and the two of us made our way to the scene of the feeding frenzy. When I arrived I identified it immediately as a Red-tailed Hawk. It was standing on top of the snake and every so often he would lean over and pick away at it.
He had bits of snake on his beak and it was interesting to watch it as it moved its head back and forth trying to swallow its lunch. The crowd varied in size at times while I was watching. At times I was the only one there and at the most there was probably 15 people including some kids.
One small boy around the age of nine ventured pretty close to the hawk. I mentioned to him that he might want to keep his distance. It's a bird of prey and he might try to make a meal out of you. The boy moved back. In hindsight the bird attacking the kid would have made for a much more interesting photo but I just couldn't let it happen.
I rattled off nearly 100 photos of the bird. He spent a good amount of time on the ground but then as the group of people grew larger I think it got a bit nervous and flew up into the nearby tree. He didn't venture too far though as he wanted to keep his meal in sight.
So far I've edited a couple of photos of my encounter, one of which you can see here, and I was pleased with the result. It's an amazing looking bird and I love how his eye almost looks right through me. Plus the sharpness of his talons is a bit scary. He could do some damage with those. But as long as he doesn't try to grab my beautiful face it's all good.
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