hawks

Category

By Red-tailed Hawk and Crabby Crow
The trees across the lake erupted in noise and birds.
A flock of crows exploded from the trees.
In the middle of the crow crowd was a red-tailed hawk.
As you can see, the crow was quite direct in expressing his feelings.
The rest of the crow flock followed along, screaming encouragement to their cousin.
I never saw any feathers fly and the whole assemblage disappeared over the top of the trees.

By Youngster Playing
Youngsters!
This juvenile red-shouldered hawk had a prize in his talon.
When he came out of the trees I thought he had a mouse.
But, no, it was a pinecone.
I have watched all sorts of immature raptors playing with sticks and pinecones.
Great way to build strength and agility for the hunt and future nest building.

By JL Neighborhood 4 photos August 26, 2017
The cooler air has a lot of birds out and about.
 
This fledgling osprey has a nice sized fish dangling below her wing and her “rivets” are glowing.
 
 
A spectacular osprey launch.
 
 
Accipiters can be tricky to identify.
I believe this is an immature Cooper’s hawk who zipped past me and into the far pine trees.
 
 
It is always a little disconcerting to see long legged birds way up in trees.
However, they often do just that!
But I didn’t let that stop me from photographing this great egret.
 

By eye of the raptor, 2 photos

The eye of a raptor gleams with its dominance of the skies.
This is an immature Accipiter, most likely a Cooper’s hawk.
It soon got tired of the crows that were pestering it.
The hawk exploded off its perch, twisting through the trees towards the noisy pests.
The crows scattered all over the small cove.

WALK7411 08-16-16 @ 10-23-04 Ebenezer raptor eye

WALK7419 08-16-16 @ 10-23-07 Ebenezer raptor eye

By broad-winged hawk

I added a new bird to my life list today.
I was near a small pond when a hawk dashed out of the trees.
I thought first that it was an Accipiter – maybe a Cooper’s hawk.
It wasn’t. It was a small Buteo.
The dark line along the trailing edges of the wings and the bold central white tail strip were diagnostic.
I had just seen a broad-winged hawk.     2 photos

WALK0239 06-14-16 @ 13-54-25 Anderson Park broad-winged hawk

WALK0234 06-14-16 @ 13-54-24 Anderson Park broad-winged hawk