Nature red of tooth and claw came to the backyard: I was hanging here at my desk doing my thing and I looked out the window and saw a big bird of prey on the ground. I think it was an osprey, perhaps one of the ones I’ve seen at the park. It was 18 inches to 2 feet high, with something brown and lumpy at its feet, which I took to be dinner.
I got out the Nikon, which lives at my desk because we occasionally do get wildlife in the backyard. But the battery was dead! Curses!
I watched for a while, as the bird attempted to get off the ground with the carcass in its clutches. A couple of big crows were making a fuss too.
Finally, I went out on the deck and the bird skedaddled.
The brown lump turned out to be an ex-rabbit.
Julie tried to scoop up the rabbit with a couple of rakes, and into a trash bag, but that didn’t work, So she finally just picked up the rabbit with her hands covered in a plastic trash bag, the way a person does when picking up dog poop. After giving the rabbit a proper ceremony (“Bye-bye, bunny,” we said) he or she went into the trash bin.
And that was the excitement this afternoon.