Hawk Visit

While making a pot of sauce (it's SAUCE not gravy, just so you know), I saw a bird fly into the yard and land on top of the girl's swing set.  It was HUGE!!  I grabbed my iPhone and told the girls to look outside.

I'm not part of the Audubon Society or anything but I think it's a hawk.  Someone told me it was a Red Tailed Hawk, and looking it up, it probably is.

I couldn't get over how big it was and that it was just hanging out in our yard.

Eventually, it hopped down, then looked more like a big chicken.

It flew back up to the slide, and the girls kept asking what it had in its claws.  With my terrible eyesight, I thought it was just some leaves, but the girls kept saying "No, there's a tail!".  Sure enough, it was a mouse!!  EWWWW!!!!

It must've tried getting a better hold of it because it went onto the slide and struggled to grab hold of something.

Both the mouse (towards the bottom) and the hawk slid down the slide.  The bird didn't bother looking for the mouse, just ignored it and flew back to the top of the swing set.  Go figure.  I wasn't sure what happened to the mouse since I wasn't brave enough to go look. 

(ETA: Joe looked when he came home and the mouse was gone)  The bird hung around a little while longer then flew off.

So strange!  Seems like we see lots of animals and things I never thought I'd see in a backyard!  Makes me think back to the visit from the owl!  I would love to see that again!

And needless to say, my girls want nothing to do with the swing now that the mouse slid down it. Can't blame them!!