When Hawks Attack

We hate to repeat ourselves at Toronto Wildlife and sure, we've posted an image of a Red-tailed hawk before. But this is a different red-tailed hawk and it's a cool action shot. So there.

This hawk actually had a black squirrel and a grey squirrel trapped on two not-so-high trees about four feet apart. Here he's just making his strike on the grey squirrel. Normally I don't love shots that have blurry wing motion but I think it works this time considering the context.

For the more timid and romantic among you...the grey squirrel survived. So did the black one. And, after awhile, the red-tail gave up and went to look for easier prey.

Taken at Colonel Sam Smith park in Etobicoke. Click to enlarge and get a better look at this picture.

Please Sir, Can I Have Some More?

The answer was no, of course, I turned this young American Red Squirrel into the street with nothing, or, at least, I turned him out into the forest with nothing.

Smaller than your typical grey and black squirrels, which are of course just about everywhere - including your attic when you don't want them to be - these guys are not nearly so common about TO. They are not, however, endangered so far as I'm aware. Sometimes they are also called 'chickarees.'

The main reason for bringing them up really was I just felt this picture was pretty much irresistible.