Red Tail

Tracks End! By Earl Plato

It was a relatively mild February days. My dog “King“, a beautiful pointer lead the way. We were in the back fields of our Plato property. King picked up the trail of a cottontail. Slowly we followed the meandering foot prints. Under a small thorn bush we found where the rabbit had deposited several little round pellets of excrement. They appeared fresh. King strained at the leash, We were now in the far northwest fields. The cottontail was bounding as shown by he track patterns. Then we heard the “Krrr! Krrr! cries of a Red tail hawk. Normally this hawk feeds on mice and voles. Yet I had seen this largest of our Buteos try to kill a cottontail unsuccessfully. Not this iime. The Red tail was successful for the tracks had ended. The hawk flew away and King and I had a large cottontail to take home. Grandma Anderson liked rabbit stew!