Trigger warning for sadness.
The sun shown through the russet and tawny and cream of what seemed to be a feathered explosion in the robin’s nest. I watched from a few feet away, with only enough time to lift a hand.
Two Robin sentinels sped to the scene but the hawk’s powerful wingstrokes carried it, with two baby robins, into the sanctuary of a nearby giant Sequoia Redwood, where the progeny of the robin became biomass for the hawk’s own chicks.
I love to see them by the Lake, on my daily walks.
But I don’t want them in my backyard, anymore, the relentless hawks.
The little birds eat bugs; some even eat slugs!
The hawk consumes the helpless, a raptor obsessed
The yard size has not changed, but has diminished.
When the hawk has finished.
I’d seen the flickering shadow on the ground
As it circled around,
backlit by a summer sun,
every afternoon, as predictable as the moon.
It always watched. Some times I saw it, sometimes not,
Peering down from on top a Pine knot.
Red-Tail? Sharp shinned? Cooper’s? I don’t care.
They didn’t fight fair.
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/s/ Redwoodman