The luckiest squirrel in WV

[WV Sawmiller]

   This afternoon I was sitting in my favorite shooting house on the back side of my property and along about 4:30 pm suddenly there was a crashing of feathers through the brush under my feeder. I figured the turkeys were back as I have 7 hens who have been helping themselves to my corn lately. (I'd watched them at the other stand this morning too). There was a big calamity at the base of a small hickory under the cable I have my feeder on to keep the bears from tearing it up.

    A big red-tailed hawk was after a big old fox squirrel. They went round and round the base of the tree a couple of times and suddenly I saw the squirrel break free - I thought. Turned out the hawk had him by the tail and pulled him back and jumped on top of him. The squirrel had quit moving so I figured the hawk had killed him. It was a very big hawk and the color was beautiful. I could even see a hint of blue around his beak. He looked up and saw me looking out the window of my shooting house and he flew off - without his squirrel. The squirrel laid there a minute or so then got up and looked pretty bewildered and confused. He hopped 5-6 feet and sat on a log for several more minutes then finally collected his thoughts and headed back the opposite direction. Apparently he survived intact. I'll keep watching for him on future trips to be sure.

    Several years ago I had a similar situation where a hawk swooped down and settled on a chipmunk under my stand. When he looked up and saw me he flew off and left the chipmunk. I looked for it when I got down but never found it. I guess he crawled into a hole in the leaves.

   I like to watch the squirrels and such but it is really neat to see a hawk or eagle or such catch their prey like that.

[Magicman]

One of the more fascinating things that I have watched was a bobcat stalk and catch a not-so-lucky squirrel.  I did not see any way that the bobcat could pull it off but nature has it's ways.

[WV Sawmiller]

   When I was in college at  Auburn I came out of the library one morning to find 50-60 people circled around watching an Irish Setter stalking a cat squirrel. The setter would ease forward 6" at a time then come to a complete stop, wait a minute or so and repeat while the squirrel hopped around without clue he was being stalked. Finally the squirrel was far enough from his tree the dog figured he could catch and he sprinted for him. They circled the tree 2-3 times with half the crowd cheering for the dog and half cheering for the squirrel. The dog ended up with a mouth full of tail hairs in his mouth and the squirrel ended up alive. It was so neat to watch the dog responding to his hunting instincts. The dog lost his prey but left with his head held high and a wagging tail.

[Kbeitz]

Years ago when working in the Christmas trees I had a large hawk
swoop down by my feet and pick up a large black snake. The hawk
had to fly and fight the snake at the same time. The snake was heavy
and the hawk had to keep flying in tight circles to clear the woods.
Sure was fun to watch. Guessing that the snake was about 8 ft long.