First off, I’d like to offer up apologies for not posting anything in a week. I’ve been busy clearing out my computer of unnecessary photographs to free up room on the old hard drive. Anyway, enough of my technological grumblings.
This past Sunday was quite the crazy day at work. I know I don’t share much about my job, and I probably won’t share anything else in the future, but the series of events that panned out throughout this day are just too good to not discuss. I’ll try to keep it as short as I can, and don’t worry, some photos are to follow as this is indeed a photo blog.
As soon as I got into work I had an animal rescue to go on. I hadn’t had an animal rescue in almost a month, it’s been extremely slow recently, so you could bet I was excited. So I quickly hustled over to the park where it was located and picked up the dog. This dog was in terrible shape, probably the worst I’ve seen of any dog that was actually alive. It’s rear leg appeared to be broken, its tail looked like someone had splashed hot oil on it, and it had a few recently healed wounds on its head. Did I mention that it was about 25 pounds underweight? Even with that list of problems, this pitbull was as friendly as ever. He also was wearing a red long-sleeve t-shirt, which I’ll discuss the significance of later.
After the dog was transported to the appropriate authorities, an action that required me to cradle the dog in my arms and carry it into the office instead of leading it in by leash, I went on some mobile patrol of the borough. I was just about to drive out of the first park I had checked out when I inexplicably glanced over my right shoulder. Much to my delight there was a red-tailed hawk standing on the ground, tearing apart a squirrel that it just had killed. Now I do consider myself a lover of all animals, but this was freaking awesome, and hey, circle of life, right? Luckily for me, and you my readers, I happened to have all my camera equipment with me, including a tripod I had just picked up, so I was instantly salivating at the photographic opportunity. In the wild it is very hard to get close to red-tailed hawks, or any animal for that matter, without scaring them off. However, when a red-tailed hawk has just grabbed a meal, that is when they are easiest to sneak up on. Frankly they are so focused on eating their meal, as well as making sure not to fly off and let someone else reap their efforts, that you can get really close to them. So how close, you ask? I was able to get to within about 15 feet of it, hunkering behind a tree, with my tripod all set up and snapping photos like there was no tomorrow. I can’t really describe in words how amazing it was to get that close to a wild hawk. It’s a sight that I will probably not get another chance to see for quite a while, if ever again. Eventually, I tried to make my way back to the truck, but the hawk got spooked and took to a tree, and then eventually made its way over a pond to the other side of the park, carrying the squirrel the whole time. I felt bad that I interrupted its meal, and it brings up an interesting topic of the relationship between nature photography and bothering wildlife that I’d love to discuss in the future. But for now you can enjoy the shots I captured at the tail end of this post.
If the day had ended at that, I would have been thrilled. But alas, that was not to be. I drove to the next park and almost immediately came across a dead Canada Goose. It looked like it died a terrible death, as it had choked on some trash, and in the process of placing it in a plastic bag to get it out of the view of the public, I noticed that it had a tracking tag on its ankle. So, before bagging it, I jotted down all the information, including a phone number that I would call later on in the afternoon.
Upon leaving the park, I received another call for an animal rescue. This one sounded a bit more difficult than the first, as a dog was supposedly chasing people around and tearing up footballs and basketballs at another park about 20 minutes away. Since the police had also been called to potentially tranquilize the dog and were already on their way, I quickly swung by my office, picked up my partner, and made my way over to the park. By the time we got there the police had arrived and left, and we observed that the dog was actually just a super friendly pitbull and not as vicious as initially thought. She was in perfect health, was easily leashed and caged, and off she went to the authorities.
While driving the dog to the authorities, my partner and I observed another injured dog in a park about two miles from our destination. Even though we already had a dog using our only cage, we attempted to capture this new dog, but actually ended up scaring it to the point that it unfortunately ran out onto a three-lane roadway. It didn’t get hit by a car, but my partner and I decided to drop off the dog we currently had in our possession and come back to check on this new dog on our way back.
The second of my animal rescues was completed shortly thereafter, but not before I learned from authorities that the first dog I had brought in had had multiple gash and slash wounds on his belly and chest, hidden to me by his red t-shirt. Poor dog. Anyway, on our way back to the office we encountered the new dog again, this time in the middle of the road, which required us to flip on lights and sirens to stop traffic and get it out of the way. Although visibly injured, it was way too quick for us to capture, but at least we got it out of harm’s way for the time being.
Finally, on my return to the office and after an abbreviated late lunch, I placed a call to that number that I had pulled from the dead goose’s ankle tag. Turns out it was the government doing migratory tracking, and now I’m going to get a certificate thanking me for reporting the number and location to them. I tried to explain to the gentleman on the phone that it hadn’t been very hard to report it seeing as the bird was dead, but he insisted on mailing me a certificate, so hurray for me.
Yes, folks, it was really quite the boring day. I’m going to eventually start posting non-nature snapshots, but for now this photo sequence of a hawk ripping apart a squirrel will have to do:
Wow- great shots of the hawk and squirrel!!
By: Judge Joe on February 20, 2008
at 10:19 am