The New Hotness

Mary found the north end of a southbound chipmunk just outside the garden gate, at the foot of the utility pole that often serves as a hawk perch:

Shortly thereafter, she found piles of gibbage atop the retaining wall by the basement door:

It looks too loose for an owl pellet, but hawks also blurp up the indigestible bits. We have definitely have a pair of Cooper’s Hawks nesting in the area again; most likely, this is what’s left of the south end of that chipmunk.

The next morning, we had a feeding frenzy out there:

I’m not sure if the snail over on the right is a participant or a bystander. It’s certainly outclassed by the slugs, which are basically soft-shell snails.

As dBm points out, nothing goes to waste in Nature:

After the crowd left and the remains dried out a bit, one chunk had a tuft of brown-tipped fur with gray roots that definitely looks like it came from a chipmunk.

Good work, hawks: go, go, go!