This, That, and the Other

The large, black bird surveyed its domain. It was a gray, cloudy day, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary. The crow had the good luck earlier in the day to have caught and consumed a small mouse. And just the day before, it had managed to snare a chipmunk. So hunger was not an issue for the bird.

There were dozens of small sparrows resting on the wires strung from pole to pole on the periphery of the park. Two herons were hunting for their own meals, one investigating the numerous gopher holes in the grass and another fishing in the shallow waters of the nearby lake.

The crow was watching the heron on the grass as it successfully grabbed a small gopher who, unfortunately for it, stuck its head slightly out of its hole, when a red-tailed hawk swooped down and literally snatched that gopher from the heron’s bill with its claw and flew off with it to its nest high in a tall tree.

That’s when the crow noticed the young boy aiming a slingshot right where the crow was perched. But before the boy could pull back and release the stone, the crow let out a series of caws and flew away, just as the winds picked up and heavy raindrops came falling to the ground from the darkening skies.

Written for today’s Thursday Photo Prompt from Sue Vincent.