Boom Bridge Red-tail

It was one of those partly cloudy but warming days, and though a good part of the morning and early afternoon was taken up with working around the house, I managed to get in a walk starting around five or thereabouts. Much of the trek was taken up with capturing "leaf porn" in the vicinity of the millpond, and when I started back towards home, I ran into a photographer with a collection of exceptionally gorgeous gear—his tripod may have cost more than my camera and lens combined—and he was hunched over his viewfinder, the words "golden moment," murmured over and over. I know what he meant, and I smiled as I headed up the hill, for I had just managed to capture that last bit of gold. But when I'd almost reached my destination, I discovered that there was still a bit more "gold" to be had. A Red-tailed Hawk graced me by leaping off its perch in an oak and soaring over the meadow just below the house. A scream, a few wing flaps, a straight-line glide towards the trees at the edge of the field, and then the great bird was gone. I'd had a fine day at the image mines.