Opportunist

The summer is almost over! Trapping season starts in just a couple weeks. Whereas I don't really need another hawk, I'll probably go trapping just for the fun of it! I saw my first immi yesterday! He (she) was sitting up on a tall power pole, and just stared down at me as I stopped and looked. A sure sign of an immature bird. It has no idea yet of what danger is. So, it just looked at me . . . look at it!

Nina's tail is all grown in . . . beautiful and red. She still has quite a few contour feathers to work through . . . and has not dropped her main primaries at the tips of her wings. Sometimes first year birds don't drop these. I will take a picture of her soon to post here. She's beautiful! And her talons are sharp, sharp, sharp!!

I observed a bit of behavior the other day that I thought I'd put out here. Red-tails are such opportunists . . . which is why these are such successful predators.

As I tied Nina out, I notice a small toad was swimming around in her water/bath dish. I decided to cast her hood and see what she did. Upon removing her hood, she noticed the movement immediately. As quick as you please, she hopped over to the dish, fished the frog out, jumped back to her perch . . . and ate it.

Well!! I guess toads are on the menu! At least this one was!