Yet another missed opportunity

I continue to walk in the woods behind our office at lunch time but the opportunity for pictures of wildlife certainly diminishes in late fall and doesn't increase until spring. So, it is with regret that I have to tell you about another missed opportunity. I wrote about missing a good picture of a squirrel here and of forgetting to take a video of large snow flakes falling slowly and vertically here. Well, I have to admit to another great shot that I missed; all because I didn't question why something was happening.

You can see from the picture here that there were a lot of crows flying around when I was out on my walk that day (Friday, March 12). If you click on the picture, you can see at least seven crows with some of them perched in the tree. They were agitated, making a lot of noise and not staying in one place for long. So, I tried to get close enough to them to get some pictures of the individual crows. But they were too fussy. I should have thought about why. I've seen this behavior two or three times before and should have realized that a hawk was probably in the area. The crows will get together to chase a hawk out of their area.

As I crept up on the crows, I noticed some fluttering of leaves at the top of a tree but ignored it. Too bad. It turned out that the "fluttering leaves" was a huge, beautiful hawk at the top of the tree and it took off before I could get my camera pointed and focused for the shot. It was gone in a few seconds with the crows chasing and calling after it. Maybe one of these days I'll put all my missed opportunities in an album :-)