“Makes your blood run cold doesn’t it Mate,” said Huck solemnly.
“Yeah,” replied Nemo.
“Imagine that, a Red Tail Hawk swooping down and grabbing a squirrel right in front of our car! Momma Dog watched her carry it off toward the trees.” Krikey Nemo, I escaped being eaten alive by that same apex predator last week. I told you that hawk was diving at me! I wonder if Steve Irvin ever had to deal with a sky diving apex predator raptor?
“Probably not Huck, he was too busy wrestling the easy ones, twenty foot snakes and crocs.”
“How did Momma Dog know it was a female A.P. Hawk?”
“She said females are 25% bigger than males, and if you hadn’t run outside to see if you could see which tree she was making squirrel nuggets in, you would also have learned that people train Red Tails for falconry. They have to be “passage hawks” though, ones that have left the nest but not yet be a year old. Otherwise they are too hard to train.”
“You mean like in the Middle Ages? Hunting prey with them riding on your outstretched paw? Let’s go get one Nemo!”
“Are you mental? Do you want to be a canine crunchie at a raptor convention?” Think about the meaning of the word ‘shredded’. Why don’t you go outside and practice your iceskating and see if you can land your jumps without four-footing them?”
That must have been amazing to see a hawk pick up a squirrel. We have a hawk that perches on a post at the back of our yard and watches for prey. A couple of times my husband saw the hawk pick up snakes and fly away.