Listen, people: We’ve all got to eat. So don’t get all judgmental about this red tailed hawk that reader Mike Alsin captured feasting on a squirrel last week.

“A red tail snagged a squirrel just above me this afternoon, landed to eat, and allowed me to sit ~8′ from him for at least 20 minutes. And get up and go inside to get my DSLR and return,” Alsin wrote us. Alsin also snagged some great shots of a pair of barred owls in his backyard last year.

Mother Nature can be so cruel. And while I think it’s important that we present life in our town in as unvarnished a manner as possible, I’ve decided against posting the shots with entrails hanging from the raptor’s beak… In any case, thanks for sending these, Mike!