Thursday, November 10, 2011

Bucks and Hawks

So this morning the hubs woke me up with "quick come look in the backyard!" I'm thinking, crap, did it snow? Is the groundhog out there rooting around in the garden again? Is the neighbor doing his weird calisthenics in spandex on the driveway? What?


Turns out it was much bigger than all that. Much bigger. And had antlers. Sharp pointy antlers.



He just laid in the grass for close to an hour, not seeming to be in any great hurry to run off. The sun kept rising in the sky and he still just laid there. When he finally stood up, it was clear why he wasn't running and jumping all over the place - one of his legs was dangling at a weird angle and he clearly wasn't putting a lot of weight on it. It was actually really painful to watch him try and make his way around the yard. He seemed lost, like he wasn't quite sure what to do with himself.


A few nibbles of some honeysuckle and my hostas, and I guess he felt it was finally time to try and move on.


He hobbled down our driveway and up the street and then disappeared. I can only hope that he finds a quiet safe place to rest and let that leg heal. It broke my heart a little to see such a powerful magnificent animal in such pain.


So as if that wasn't enough excitement for one morning, in the midst of our vigil watching the buck, I noticed that our huge hawk was perched in the branches of the silver maple, observing as well.


And then our cheeky mocking bird popped into the picture - I guess he didn't take too kindly to having a hulking raptor of a bird messing with his territory. He comically bounced from limb to limb, challenging the hawk to take a jab, even though he was perhaps 1/6th the size. You've got to hand it to him, he's got pluck.


Yet another reason why I love living in Pleasant Ridge - it's like living in a nature preserve in the middle of the city.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Isn't nature wonderful?

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