Urban Wildlife Experience

Norah, Ryan and I took Cole for his regular afternoon walk yesterday - down to the lake and back - but it was definitely not our usual walk! Where our street meets the lake, there's a short dock out into the water that Norah always likes me to take them out onto. From the end of the dock, we spotted a mallard pair and watched them paddle around. After a minute or two, they swam hurriedly 10 or 15 feet further into the lake and we were surprised as a BIG red-tailed hawk landed on a branch very close to us.

I'm explaining to Norah that this really big bird is a hawk and that he's probably looking for food and wow, isn't he cool? When suddenly, he swoops down, grabs a frog, and flies off to another branch!! We hustled off in the stroller to get a better view of his new perch and watched him eat his snack. The mallards swam right along with us and parked under his branch - maybe to pick up what he dropped or maybe they were just curious, too? Anyway, by this point, several other people had joined us and everyone was impressed by being able to see him eat so close-up! Pretty cool for some city kids :)

(I SO wish I had our big camera with me!! the iPhone just doesn't do this justice.)