** Season of the Hunt **

Walked to work today in Boston. Chilled to the bone...snow and ice on the ground, wind whipping, temperature around 20 degrees.

My daily walking commute takes me through the Boston Public Gardens. Nearing the entrance, I noticed something a bit...strange.

Apparently, some predator had attacked a large rat and dumped the body on the top of one of the pillars right at the entrance to the gardens.

The body was completely ripped apart with some viscera lying around (most of it gone...eaten) and the head was missing. Looked to me like some bird of prey's handiwork. There are hawks in Boston and they typically prey on pidgeons and rats.

But the interesting thing about this tableau of carnage was the fact that people made a huge effort NOT to see it. I stood nearby for 15 minutes, just watching people walk through the entrance. Nobody batted an eyeball. Because of the cold, the creature was frozen solid soon after the time of death, so the blood was still bright red (not oxidized brown). IMPOSSIBLE to not notice while walking through the gate. Almost at eye level.

It's amazing to me how people will immediately stop and gawk at automobile accidents or scenes involving human violence or injured humans, but it seems they totally ignore any such similar sights involving the animal kingdom. Roadkill. Dead animals. Animals eating each other. Scenes of slaughterhouses. In my experience, people shun these images or pretend they are not there. I wonder why.

I couldn't resist and took a number of pictures. Upon walking outside the park, I saw that someone had put little Santa hats on the bronze statues of the ducklings. Awwww. So cute. Nice and cheerful. LOTS of people were looking at them and taking pictures. A completely unreal image of winter wildlife, neatly anthropormorphized.

The reality is that in the winter, animals have to hunt and kill each other to survive. Nothing morbid about it. It's reality. But I guess we prefer the cute idea of birds wearing human hats in the snow.

I almost took one of the hats to put on poor ol' ratty, just to make his final scene on earth a bit more cheery. Too bad he didn't have a head to put it on. I guess it's the thought that counts.