Life and Death In Our Front Yard

Hey! Look who it is!
Half Tail. My friend who inspired this story last month.
Thought you might like to know he/she really does exist, and has survived the winter, and as of yet, has not been schmucked on the road.

Speaking of getting schmucked...

She's a bit hard to see (so I put a filter on the photo, and clicking on it provides a larger image) but that's a female pigeon hawk standing on the carcass of the pigeon she nailed in our front yard, its downy belly feathers flung out across the leaves.
Turns out, the hawk's eyes are bigger than her wing span because she couldn't pick the pigeon off the ground to fly off with it!
That's what happens when humans feed the wild birds and the pigeons show up...

Since we have sliding glass doors right in front of our dining room table, overlooking the front yard, we all got to eat supper together last night -- although we didn't have to pluck our pizza before tearing into it.

I got to thinking later, if Sara Jewell was a bird, she'd be this pigeon hawk. She'd be the one who kills the bird for whom she's named -- but not be able to pick it off the ground and carry it off. Sara Jewell would be the one who manages to kill the fattest bird in the flock then has to pluck it and eat right there in the middle of the garden because she misjudged everything -- and now has to recalibrate her plans.
Always learning from her mistakes because, well, as always: More enthusiasm than skill.