Wild Kingdom - right here on the farm

I have a friend who is an avid birder and life long member of Auduban. She loves to go birding and can sight a female bluebird at a thousand yards. Me? Well, I don't even like birds.  We see plenty of hawks and stuff on the way to church on the back country roads - so you won't see me at any competitive birding events any time soon. I can't even tell the difference between a crow and a condor.

Do you see what I see? You might have to click on the picture and zoom in...

But this morning - wow!  We had the wild kingdom happening right in front of us.

We were all sitting on the hillside enjoying the morning and being slobbered on by many, many big dogs when something caught our eye down at the pond. I moseyed down to get a better view because it looked like an enormous hawk had perched on a limb overhanging the water. So I got closer....and then she started thrashing around.

So I got even closer trying to figure out what she was doing... and then she kinda flopped into the water and then really started thrashing but she couldn't take off. So I started running toward her.

Is this better? Right there at the edge of the water?

Let's be clear. I don't love hawks because they love my chickens and not too long ago we found one of the hens dead and partly eaten by a hawk. So there isn't a lot of love for them around here. As long as they stick to hunting field mice I don't care what they do. But stay away from my hens.

Isn't that amazing?

However, I'd hate to think that a hawk was somehow tangled up and was a sitting duck,  especially right there by the pond next to Fox Central. So I made my way around the pond when I saw her suddenly take off... and there was something dangling from her leg.

For one quick moment I thought it was her tethers hanging from her leg and I thought, "Ohmigosh, that's someone's falcon and she's gotten loose!"  Because, you know I've always fancied myself out hunting in the hinterland - on an enormous horse with no name, with my war hounds, and a giant falcon on my arm.... so I figured this was my chance.

It was either that or she had gotten tangled up in some fencing or baling twine. And I figured she needed some rescuing so we circled around the pond looking for her. We saw her fly thru the woods then suddenly she landed on a nearby branch.  We could see that what she had was.....

....a snake she had fished out of the pond!

She did not need any rescuing from us at all. That snake, however, got the raw end of that deal for sure.

As long as she's happy with snake that's fine with me. I hear it tastes like chicken. 

That's the word here from the wild kingdom. I tell you this, you never know what's going to happen around here.

Happy Monday everyone? Can you top THAT for today?