Hawk & Squirrel Rain Deer Cold Spring

Blustery cold (37F, 20 mph) spring day. I went to the NE Gate at 4:30 to see what the half inch sharp rain had done Saturday, and the strong northwest wind today. The Tree Loop was in good shape. Students (~18) in Phenology began their monitoring of 100 trees around the Loop this past Tuesday 5 March. Elms were already flowering and Eleagnus leaves were emerging but everything else was still waiting.

At the north end of the Tree Loop I heard a commotion in the top of a dead hackberry tree just northeast of the trail. A red tailed hawk was sitting there and a squirrel was scolding it from a foot or two away. Then I saw why. The hawk had landed in / on the squirrel's nest. I stood and watched and after a minute or two the hawk flew 20 feet away and landed on the ground. It had taken the squirrel's entire nest in its claws and seemed almost stuck. Then I saw the whisking tail of the squirrel (adult or young..the tail looked small) of the squirrel the hawk had pinned in the nest. The hawk stood awkwardly on the ground facing me in the distance for 3-4 minutes then flew up to a nearby oak leaving the nest and squirrel. I didn't intervene. I am guessing after I passed on by the hawk returned to complete it's meal.

I took the Pipeline Trail to head west across the wash. There was water backed up but easy to jump across. I walked along the NW trail to the East Pond and there flushed four ducks. At least one looked like a wood duck.. maybe all four. The water depth was  1.10 '. On to the West Pond (no ducks) & water depth of 1.3 '. Lots of FLAB on West pond surface. It has been there for a few weeks.  At the West pond I flushed 7 white-tailed deer. Two ran upslope and five ran south east of the pond.
All the trails I walked were OK. The water from Saturday's rain had not backed up to the beaver dam.

I cleared some dead cedar branches and decaying logs to make a new Levee Leg off the Tree Loop west of the cedar arch down toward the wash below. I flagged a half dozen new trees (bur oaks, pin oak, big persimmon, big cottonwoods) and a few other small interesting 1-2 m tall saplings there - not sure what they are. I'll have to wait for leaves. Plus two Bradford Pear on the south side of the Pipeline Trail.