Snatched

 

There i was, walking the parking lot during my mid-morning loop, as many people in the office do. Up ahead i spotted a grasshopper, one of those little ones, and as i got closer it spread its wings and jumped into the air. Unbeknownst to me, and the grasshopper apparently, a mockingbird had been eyeing it from some nearby perch. Well, the hopper had barely made it off the hot pavement when that bird swooped in and snatched it out of the air - surprised i was, and surprised that grasshopper must have been too. You have to get pretty close to a grasshopper before whatever impulse to flee from danger kicks in - that's how close the aerial feeding was. Bicycling is the same, in a way, and mountain biking maybe even more so. You can have this great expansive view, purple mountains majesty in the distance, but the action takes place right there in front of you.