Red Car Property: Red Tailed Hawk's Successful Hunt

Photo: Diane Edwardson, September 30, 2014.  The large Red Tailed Hawk was stalking prey from across the meadow on the Corralitas end of the Red Car Property.  She looks rather pleased with her squirrel.  (Click on photo to enlarge.)

I was walking through the canyon and too far to get a shot of the hawk launching her attack from the top of the telephone pole and rather casually swooping in low toward the hillside, sun at her back.  I was too far away to get a shot of her on the hill, but she seemed to catch the squirrel on the ground while it ran between protected native Black Walnut trees.

Photo: Diane Edwardson, September 30, 2014.  By the time I caught up with her, she was already digging into her squirrel safely atop an opuntia cactus half way up the steep slope to Lake View Ave.  She did keep looking upslope though, as if there were another predator, like a coyote, was watching her tear into her breakfast.