Raptor

I think it was the day before yesterday that I pointed my vehicle south down a rural Kentucky highway. I rounded a curve with a newly-mowed hayfield on my right and a sloping, hilly vista on my left that drops away toward the Pallisades, those steep, striking cliffs with the lazy Kentucky River at their feet. A red-tailed hawk was beating the air with his wings, looking for purchase on an updraft that would help him clear the highway. He flew directly in front of me for a short distance and I saw that he held a snake in his right talon. Suddenly he made a move to go more vertical; the stall brought him close enough to my car that he got rattled and dropped his feast. The snake spun down toward me, describing first a 'C' and then a question mark in the air before I passed underneath. It thumped onto my roof, slid backward, and dropped onto the yellow centerline behind me. I glanced at it in my side mirror. I reckon crows deserve to eat, same as hawks.