Red Tailed Hawk

I woke up slowly on Monday morning (is there any other way?) and when I opened my eyes fully discovered that we had a red tailed hawk sitting on the tree branch right outside my window, about 20 feet away. I whacked Homestead Mama awake quickly and was granted amnesty from a return thumping as she agreed that I had good reason. The hawk was preening while keeping an eye open for breakfast. I have never seen one so large and so close up - we could see the red speckles on its belly, the talons gripping the perch, and its hungry ever-scanning eyes. After 7 minutes of watching it, something moved in the garden and it took off towards the ground. When we were dressing 15 minutes later, we saw it in our meadow further away from the house. It was perched on a mound of mulch happily consuming whatever it had caught. We continued to marvel at the glory of it all until we realiezed we should be making sure all our cats were inside and accounted for - it was a big hawk! With the whole pack intact, we went about our day. I love living in a rural area. (Picture below is not mine. I may have been awake, but I wasn't funtioning this highly.)