Steve and I decided to take the dogs for a hike this afternoon, along the Patapsco River near where we live. We walked the trail up to the bottom of Liberty Dam. As you can see, there is no water flowing over, and the river is barely moving!
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| The bottom of Liberty Dam |
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| Puddles and Lynne |
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| Steve and Daisy, who is rock jumping across the water! |
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| Snack time! |
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| Puddles looking for Steve. Bottom of the dam. |
On the way back out, Steve wanted to take a little side trail. We hadn't seen much in the way of wildlife on our walk, but he had a feeling we'd find something up that trail. And sure enough, we did.
We saw a Redtail Hawk. It took a few minutes to register what we were seeing. The hawk was down a small bank at the creek, and there was blood at it's feet...that was clear. At first, we thought it might be hurt because it made no move to fly away, even with the dogs being with us. (they had not yet spotted the bird)
Then, we though it was eating some prey. It was, but eventually we realized that the hawk was feasting on a dead buck that was laying in the creek. He sat there so still, that we think he didn't want us to see him. And so camouflaged was the whole scene, I am surprised we saw him at all!
Steve moved the dogs away while I tried to get some pictures. Well, they didn't all turn out so great. I didn't have my glasses on, and had a hard time focusing the camera on zoom. The batteries were almost dead and I had to turn it off and back on after each attempt at a shot. DUH. But I did get these two.
He eventually moved off of the deer, but not far, and not fast. He opened his wings and used them just a little to move away, and then to hop on a tree limb that was fallen.
So, I am left to wonder if he was hurt, or so hungry he was just that unwilling to leave the carcass. Maybe an old hawk, no so good at hunting any more? I don't think so...his tail isn't red yet and is striped, and the iris of his eye is very light, probably a juvie. And I wonder about the deer....how did he come to be laying in this small creek? It was very, very fresh. A small buck. Was he sick and succumbed to the illness? Was he shot by a hunter who thought he missed him, or just didn't want to pursue him when he didn't drop right away?
It was hard to know what to do about the hawk. I was concerned mostly because he didn't fly away, which is not normal behavior. He didn't even go when the dogs spotted him and started barking. He was no more than 20 feet away from us. We thought about trying to catch him, (there is a wildlife rehabber not terribly far from us) but that would have been very difficult given the terrain and the fact that the dogs were with us. If he was in fact hurt, stressing him with a chase would likely kill him if we couldn't catch him fast. It was already getting dark, and if we had tried taking the dogs home and going back, it would have been too dark and dangerous to try to catch him by then.
So we left nature to it's course, with a sad heart. Hopefully, since he was eating and at least mobile to some degree, he'll be OK. And there is every possibility that he really is OK, and he just wasn't willing to leave the carcass. We will take a walk back there again on Saturday to see if we find him again.
