The Discovery Channel in My Backyard

Last week I witnessed a little piece of nature. More specifically, I saw survival of the fittest up close and personal. While on the phone looking out at my backyard I noticed a large bird. Too big to be an ordinary sparrow, I thought it must be a hawk, but a small one. This lil guy probably got made fun of at hawk school cuz he's so small.
He was a shy hawk so I had trouble getting him to pose for the camera.
I think to myself, "gee usually hawks are up high so they can look for prey. I wonder why this one is on the ground?"

Then I see him do something similar to this:

Yup...he was on the ground because he was eating. I couldn't tell what he was eating, but he was ripping something apart and enjoying quite the snack. At one point something long and grisly was dangling from the side of his beak.
"Umm sir, you've got a little something hanging there...No, other side...almost gone...there you got it."

I decided to go outside very quietly to try to get a better picture of him. All I came up with was this:

As I started getting closer, he flew away, but then I was able to see what was left of his snack. Just a pile of feathers...no bones, hardly any blood. Just feathers. Gross.

He came back later in the afternoon and hung out in the backyard. I'm sure he was looking for more tasty morsels, but the birds in the area had learned their lesson. However, after watching all of this, I was inspired to buy these: