When a goshawk visits, everyone pays attention.
Small birds -- that's every other bird but the goshawk, small mammals, people... even my cats look nervous! I exaggerate; my cats are still sleeping.

Yesterday the mid-Atlantic region set seasonal high records; today it's about thirty-brisk degrees F. cooler! The fall color came quickly, and now most leaves have blown away, or into my neighbors' yards. But blown too is the cover for our small neighbors who just became easier prey.

The goshawk may have followed south the frosty edge of fall foliage, all the better to hunt. It sits a dark harbinger of winter that is close behind.
H.P.