Not too far away from our house is the Blue Hills Reservation. One of my favorite places there is Houghton’s Pond, a beautiful pond that is open for swimming in the summer, too. I do enjoy the pond throughout the year, even when everything is frozen and bare trees cover the area.

Having bare trees was what drew our attention to a hawk that was sitting on a dead tree. After getting the hawk in focus with my long lens I noticed that the hawk was actually banded.

After a couple of minutes the hawk took off, which looks very impressive.

Surprisingly, the hawk landed on another branch even closer to us. By now, a little crowd had gathered around us, curious to see what we were looking at.

“Our” hawk was now looking left to right and then, after another couple of minutes, suddenly took off and landed on the shore of the small wetland area. We heard a faint squeak. After a couple of moments the hawk flew back on the perch with its prey tightly gripped.

I spare the gory details here of how not much was left of the mouse. In a final move, the hawk flew onto another perch, and there it seemed like it posed for me.

We are grateful to observe nature so close to where we live and it is wonderful to see those majestic birds right here in our backyard.