Yesterday afternoon, it was apparent the hawks that inhabit the University of Massachusetts didn’t go home to their nests and have filling Thanksgiving dinners like the rest of us.

In the mundane routine of academic life, students traveling to and from Bartlett Hall found themselves observing survival of the fittest firsthand. Around 2:15 p.m., a hawk spotted a squirrel on the lawn of Bartlett and made quick decent to end the life of an unsuspecting Amherst animal. More tragically, or comically, was the amount of students there to witness the feasting.

The hawk was so adamant about finishing the dinner that the sounds of horror, laughing and disgust, along with flashes of cameras and swarms of people, had yet to deter the predator from the meal he dragged underneath the bush to the right of the building.

About 50 people congregated at the entrance to hear and see what all the attention was about on the lawn of Bartlett. What was another day in the life of a hawk turned out to be a half-hour reminder that in the season of finals, students don’t have it all that bad.