A Very Sad Post

Jack, Jeanine and I watched yesterday afternoon the killing of one of the wild brown rabbits that live in our neighborhood. We saw a really huge coopers hawk zoom down from the gable of our house to right under our little dogwood tree that had lost its leaves. He stood there for several minutes turning his head from side to side. After standing still for some time he reached down and plucked out something grey. That's when Jack exclaimed that he thought the hawk had caught something and that it might be a grey squirrel so he went to get our binoculars. Yes, I think it is a grey squirrel Jack exclaimed after looking thru the binoculars. But right at that moment the coopers hawk looked straight at us as we were gathered at the window and our daughter Jeanine exclaimed I think he can see us through this window and he looks nervous and wary! Sure enough no sooner had Jeanine said that then the coopers hawk flew up on our neighbors roof gable. So at that point we went to investigate what was lying under the dogwood tree in our yard.

Well, what a surprise we had. We discovered that the coopers hawk had killed an adult rabbit that must have weighed at least five or six pounds! Oh, my gosh! What a sad, sad sight.

This happened before dusk yesterday. We kept looking out the window till it got dark to see if the coopers hawk would return to claim his dead prey. He didn't. I just couldn't believe that he could even carry in his claws such a heavy load and wondered if he killed it by mistake thinking it was a small chipmunk. Eventually we went to bed last night. When I got up this morning I was still curious about this tragic event so I went outside to see if the dead rabbit was still under the dogwood. If so, I knew that Jack was going to have to remove it and bury it. Well, guess what folks? The rabbit was gone and just few tufts of fur was all that was left on the ground. Now here's my question. Did the coopers hawk return after dark and claim his kill or did another wild creature like a red fox come along to claim the kill? I tend to think that it was the coopers hawk that returned. What do you think?