Red Fighting With Blue

Last Friday as I was back in the more rugged section of my park. Back behind the ponds and up on a hill we call 'the vineyard'. I saw something I've never seen and probably never will again. It was very exciting!

A group of us rangers were pulling out a rather large old dilapidated info panel to replace it with a new sign. I pulled out the old sign with our tractor--(I'm beginning to kick ass on that tractor by the way!) I jumped down from the seat and started bringing up small bucket fulls of dirt to bury the new sign post with. As I was waiting for the other rangers to tamp down the dirt. I spied across the field some kind of ruckus in the grass. I saw the tail end of a Red Shouldered Hawk fly down to the grass-- BIG wings flip up and then heard the prehistoric KKKRRrraaaakkkk of a Great Blue Heron as he flew away. We have several GBH's at our park and in particular, we have a beautiful RSH that I often see in the back areas of the park. They're my favorite hawks because of their chattiness and gorgeous checked wings and tail.

The Heron had caught something in the grass. Probably a ground squirrel. The Hawk saw what he had and swooped down to nab it from him! The Heron wouldn't fight a hawk even though it's much bigger in size. The other rangers only heard the noise. But I was able to see it. I'm very lucky.

Speaking of luck..Kimm just found 200 Canadian dollars on the ground and 170 euros. They were in the street in front of our house. I guess it pays to keep your eyes at ground level!