It looks like I may have interrupted lunch…notice the remnants of a raptor snack on the horizontal fence post. This particular bird didn’t look to enthused to have me stopping the truck nearby, and took off shortly after this shot. He sure looked pretty scraggly with his feathers wet and matted! I think it made him look even more stern and cranky than a hawk usually looks.

It sure was a soaker last Saturday; when I’d get out of the truck in the middle of a rural Morton County gravel road, I’d leave footprints. Yes, a lot of four wheel drive was employed. I credit the cold, soggy day for the hawk’s reluctance to simply fly away as soon as I got close. Most of the other ones I saw that day were gone as soon as I began to slow down.