The Hunt

I spent part of the morning watching this immature Red-tailed Hawk hunting for his breakfast. I first spotting him flying across a field and landing in a large tree. All the Starlings and Robins flew off. This hawk then dove to the ground, not sure what he saw, but whatever it was, he missed. He then began to toss a stick in the air and run a few feet towards the stick and throw the stick in the air again. ( a hunting practice many young hawks do) A few minutes later, he flew across the road and under a small tree/bush where a squirrel was gathering nuts and berries. Luckily, for the squirrel, he saw the hawk at the last instant and was able to scurry up the tree. The hawk then spent the next 30 minutes trying to figure out how to get to the squirrel out of the tree/bush. A few times the hawk stuck his head in the bush, trying to intimate the squirrel. Other times, the hawk would lift off the top of the tree about a foot or two and dropped down hard on the bush, hoping that would scare the squirrel out of the tree. It was a stale mate and the hawk finally gave up and flew off.