Easter Auguary

Easter Sunday, as the assembled family was eating hors d'oeuvres out on the back deck,...

a crow flew overhead, alighted on the telephone pole serving our house,

... and began eating a red striped garter snake.

 A second crow joined it ...

and received strips of the disemboweled snake from the first crow's beak to its own.









Because the birds were eating a snake on top of a telephone pole, the whole thing reminded me of a painting by Cristóbal de Villalpando, "Moses and the Brazen Serpent and the Transfiguration of Jesus."  The Brazen Serpent is from the Book of Numbers.  (There's a better picture of it at the MET, here: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/719315 )

• https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/719315
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And now, of course, I'm wanting to write a story with a title like "Transubstantiation of the Serpent," or "Communion of Crows," or start working on a Brazen Serpent for a Halloween Front Lawn Diorama.