Red-tailed hawk with raccoon -------------
It was time to visit one of my favorite locations for wildlife photography along the big river again. I haven’t been in the Green Island Wetlands since last fall and today we finally were able to see the sun again. I hardly ever come back from this location with an empty memory card but this time not much was going on. A little further south, along the road to Sabula, Iowa I found this scene. This Red-tailed Hawk was all over a dead raccoon, obviously a road kill, and didn’t give up on it, even after I stopped the car and started shooting. However, it wasn’t until I looked at my photos at home on the computer that I realized that the hawk had a deep injury on its chest. I just can assume that a collision with a car caused the wound. The hawk seemed to act normal and I just can hope that this injury may not effect its ability to hunt for food. At least this raccoon was claimed…