Redtail Rise aquila chrysaetos

The bird had been a flash of gold, strong like a sunbeam, and he remembered ducking away from it immediately — then a squeeze, and weightlessness. The cries of his mother swiftly curtailed as he'd blacked-out from the destabilizing sensation of fear.

That had been some time ago. It had been brief, too; the blackness enveloped him and then he was awake again, kicking, squirming, an unwilling participant in what would've been dinner, with Requiem as the main course. The bird might have thought him dead already and been caught by surprise — whatever the case, it was gone now, and he was alive.

A child of only a few months, crying out with a keen note for mother.