All photos by Barrie Lynn Totten Wood

When I was about six years old in rural Connecticut I knew the red-tailed hawk as the "chicken hawk". And it was not a rare sight to see one  draped on a fence to warn other bad hawks to stay away! And why not, for predators of all sorts were evil and deserved to die! But even back then, thanks to my biology professor dad, I knew that was wrong.  Much has changed. Red tails, like all our birds of prey, are now  fully protected by State and Federal Law for our human centered view of the ways of nature has morphed  into a vision based on science and the roles of predators.  Hawks are predators, magnificant ones at that.  And in winter, in Michigan, viewing can be spectacular, be it a blur of an image  along the edges of I-75 or in the case of these photos, graciously shared with me by my neighbor/rancher/ friend  Barrie Lynn  Totten Wood, owner of Benchmark Alpacas at the Tin Roof Ranch (http://www.benchmarkalpacas.com/), in a rural setting.

 Her photos make the word chicken hawk and  images of dead ones on fences light years away.

  But I have never forgotten.