My grandson Jack was looking through the kitchen window up our driveway when he exclaimed “Isn’t that a hawk?”. Indeed it was a hawk on the driveway.
The Hawk was quite far away, and I had to use my grandson’s shoulder for a tripod, so these photographs are not as good as I would like. However, the bird is clearly a Red-shouldered Hawk (Buteo lineatus).
It is unusual to see a hawk on the ground, and it was behaving in an unusual manner. It seems to walking with high steps. I have never seen a Buteo walk on the ground before so perhaps this is the normal way they walk.
Occasionally it would pick something off the driveway and eat it.
I was very curious about what it might be eating off the driveway, so after the hawk had left I went up to see. At first I could see nothing but gum balls (fruit from the Sweetgum tree) and tree detritus from the rainstorm we had last night.
On closer inspection, however, I discovered the hawk’s quarry…earthworms! The rain of the night before had caused earthworms to crawl above ground to avoid flooding. Some of them had crawled onto the pavement of the driveway. I had often seen earthworms on the driveway after rains, but I had never seen them being preyed on by hawks.