“Mike! Mike! Come here! Quick!”

I don’t typically sprint up the basement stairs to start my mornings (frankly, I don’t sprint much at all these days), but Monica’s tone sounded urgent. When I reached her, she was looking out a dining room window through a pair of binoculars.

“There’s a hawk eating bird across the street!” she said. And sure enough, standing on top of the light post was red-tailed hawk with a slumped pigeon in its talons.

Wildlife wandering through the neighborhood isn’t without precedent. Living a couple of miles from the Arkansas river might have something to do with that. About two or three years ago while walking the dogs I saw a fawn trotting along Orman Ave. And few summers ago, Monica and I were left slack-jawed as we sat in the backyard and saw a Mississippi kite pluck a bat out of mid-air.

That hawk spent a good 45 minutes atop the lamppost with its prey, leaving the ground below littered with feathers. A woman walking along the street slowed and surveyed the scene, seemingly in an attempt to work out what went down. If she’d taken a look skyward, she’d have figured it out.