Last week, while sitting down to a nice dinner with Faith, I noticed a flash out of the corner of my eye from the side window. "Colored bird?" I thought to myself, but hadn't really seen enough to know. Just seemed...different.

Five or ten seconds later a red-tailed hawk (I'm only 70% sure of that ID) lifted off from the pond with a big "bundle" clasped in its talons. I was facing that way and saw it struggle to gain altitude and then alight in a tree at the back edge of the yard.

"Faith..."

At which point I did what I always do in such circumstances...ran for the camera and zoom lens, trying to explain to Faith all the way. I made it out to the yard and started working my way to the trees, but only managed to pull out this fuzzy shot before the hawk took flight again.

By then my brain had had enough time to process images and circumstances to figure out that the hawk had made off with a breeding pair of toads from the pond. I'd seen them earlier, laying long strands of eggs in the shallows where the flow from the waterfall is best.

They normally don't come out until night. Once they start to lay eggs maybe it's hard to stop? Don't know how many the hawk has picked off, but it's been pretty quiet lately. When the hawk flew off I heard one of the toads fall to the ground.

Which has nothing to do with these two birds. I think they are a female and male Rose-breasted Grosbeak. The male landed next to me while I was photographing flowers out on the deck. The female, well, she bonked into one of our windows and "landed" outside my basement office. Lucky for her it was just me and a zoom lens as opposed to Tink and an appetite.

After a few minutes of brain de-scrambling she took flight without trouble and headed off to a safer perch.

Circle of life: frog eats frog, snake eats bird egg, bird eats toads, cat eats birds (and moles), dog eats lamb, and the people in the house...they'll eat anything.