Late walk. Crowded. Warmish for a late January afternoon. I took a picture of the clock when it read 3:33:33 pm. Soon after, I came upon a group of people looking back, and over me, up at the sky. I turned to see what they were looking at, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. As I turned back around, a long-winged, disordered (to me, anyway) flight over the water, caught my eye. Swallow? No, they migrate. Bat? They hibernate, but they do overwinter here. The timing was odd, both for time of year and time of day. But those are the only two creatures that fit the description. Perhaps it was disturbed from hibernation, did seem disoriented. It flew back over the grass, and as I watched, a bird dropped out of the sky and appeared to grab it. It circled back over the water, and then into a nearby tree. Someone told me it was an Osprey. Too small. More likely a Peregrine.
Two crows flew over and harrassed it. When I saw it fly over the water, it didn't look like it had anything, but up on the branch, it was eating at something, and I could see the outline of a wing move. Pretty sure it caught the bat. Poor bat, gets woken up from slumber, stumbles outside, and then gets picked off by a falcon. Remainder of walk was uneventful. I walked a little more than halfway, and turned around, because I really only enjoy about 2/3 of the walk, and decided I didn't actually need to walk the part I disliked.
When I walked past the tree, the falcon was still sitting there, crows long gone.
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