By David Fortier

My daughter texted for me to check the lawn across the street.

“Vulture eating a squirrel,” the text said. “What has the town become?! The Serengeti?!!!”

She was joking about the Serengeti but not the vulture, which turned out to be a turkey vulture cleaning up after a hawk caught and killed the squirrel.

I grabbed my camera and headed over, totally ignoring boundaries, because I did not want to scare the bird and I had concerns about my own safety.

Keeping close to my neighbors house, partially protected by a bush, I was startled when my neighbor whispered from inside the house. She was watching the bird.

“You should have seen the hawk,” she said.

I apologized, took a few more photos, two of which appear here, and headed back home.

The next morning my wife Mary reported that on her morning walk she noticed two birds acting erratically in one of the trees above where the buzzard had its meal.

It wasn’t long, she said, before she saw a hawk emerge from the tree. She suspected the hawk had found the birds’ next.

David Fortier is publisher of The Bristol Edition. He is a high school teacher and belongs to the Connecticut Education Association. In addition, he is state director for the Journalism Education Association. His wife Mary is a city councilwoman who is running for state senate in the 31st District.