Oko Napcinyunka

Monday, Apr 19 to Sunday, Apr 25, 2021: high 72, low 19, gust 33 mph, moisture 0.02"

This photo above was taken by one of the trail cameras as the strip at the bottom of it indicates. Its central images is a red tail hawk, though maybe it is another species. The opportunity to get this picture was pretty fascinating. It was Thursday afternoon when i was walking north along the west side of the springs approaching Turtle Pond. Some ducks few up, and then as i walked near the tree along the pond’s southeast bank, a hawk jumped out from under it and flew off! So upon investigating, there floating in the water right against the bank (just “below” the water in the photo above) was a grouse with its neck broken. There were a smattering of feathers floating in the still water around it, but no sign that it was being consumed. So i got the idea to get a trail camera and position it to record the fate of the grouse’s carcass. When i returned with the camera, the hawk was beginning its dinner, eating its way through where the grouse’s neck connects to its body. After setting the camera, i left and returned after about an hour to swap the disks and see what the camera recorded. To my great disappointment, there were no images on the disk. So i returned to the camera and found that the hawk had pullled the carcass onto the bank. What i didn’t know then, but can tell now is that the camera was pointed too high initially. However, when the hawk pulled the carcass onto shore, it was then in the camera’s field of view. I swapped the disk in the camera and didn’t return until Friday afternoon to retrieve the disk. By then the carcass was gone; a scattering of feathers about thirty feet away indicates that something drug it there and ate it. The image above is one of nearly a hundred of the hawk that the camera captured Thursday evening.