National Mall Sunday Walk and a Nasty Hawk

We walk almost every day, except for Saturday. We usually head out for an early brunch in McLean, and it's a holdover from when I was working. I wouldn't mind walking in the afternoon around sunset, which is my favorite time of the day. But my husband prefers the morning. So on another beautiful blue sky fall day, we went to our typical stomping grounds on the national mall. I saw a car with a boulder on top of it in front of the Hirshhorn Museum as we drove down Independence Avenue and wanted to get a closer look at it. Then we walked over to the sculpture garden and somehow the artwork looks a bit more interesting against the autumn backdrop. One of the most disturbing and unsuspecting sights we came upon was a huge hawk plucking a defenseless squirrel out of a tree right in our neighborhood as we were on our way home. I thought I saw something very large fly in to the tree. And when we passed by it, the predator was flying away with the furry tail fapping in the breeze, with a crow right behind it. It looked so awful in real life - different than the nature shows! I can't seem to get that image out of my head...so let's focus back on the sculptures and the flowers.