Pages

Sunday, January 10, 2010

Red from the Rooftop

 One of the last birds spotted before the New Year came in was this red-shouldered hawk.

IMG_5350a

I was in my front yard working in the flower beds when this big guy showed up on my rooftop. I slowly slipped inside the house to grab my camera, expecting him to be gone when I returned, but lucky for me he was still there. He/she seemed to be more occupied on something else than what I was doing so I quickly snapped off a couple photos before the big guy flew away.

Red-shoulders will often visit backyard bird feeders to prey on small birds feeding there, especially in winter. They will drop on prey from a perch location. This one seemed to be doing just that. He was eyeing my backyard bird feeders hoping to snatch an easy meal for sure. Fortunately for the birds feeding below it flew off without a meal this time.

On a separate note, I want to apologize, especially to my regular readers for going AWOL and not not posting for a couple months. Now that we are through the holiday season and it's too cold to spend lots of time outdoors I will be posting more regularly again. I haven't visited many of your blogs either, so I have lots of good reading to catch up on!

In the meantime, be sure to visit Birdfreak's Bird Photography Weekly #72 for more bird photos.

 

14 comments:

eileeninmd said...

Nice sighting but I feel sorry for your yardbirds.

Janet, The Queen of Seaford said...

Glad to see you back, wondered what happened to you. Cool hawk picture. While I understand the food chain I hate to see the smaller birds becoming prey. I vote for rabbits!!

Anonymous said...

Welcome back, Alan. Great bird to return with!

Les said...

Your AWOL has officially been pardoned. Have you noticed more hawks in general than there used to be? Seems I see them a lot more.

Dave said...

Nice picture! I was wondering if you were still around. I figured you were taking a winter break. Glad to see you back to posting!

Larry said...

Nice to see you back Alan! Nice shot of the Red-shouldered Hawk too.

Carol said...

I have one that visits my yard fairly often. My feeders have been placed so there is no great flight line for them to snatch my birds. I love to see them..just dont want to provide a banquet for them.

www.wildlifearoundus.blogspot.com

Bob Kaufman said...

Welcome back, Alan! We sure missed you. The Red-shouldered Hawk is a great way to get started again. :-)

Eve said...

Oh no - I didn't realize that the hawk would do that (fly in and snap up a smaller bird). Almost makes me feel as though I'm luring out unsuspecting prey with my feeder. That hawk sure is a handsome fellow though.

Kelly said...

I love seeing Red-shouldered Hawks. Last winter, one visited for a short while, but mostly we get Cooper's (which are gorgeous too). Great capture of a beautiful bird.

Felicia said...

My teacher in a birding class I took once said that if you put up a feeder, you're feeding ALL birds that come by--including raptors!

Nice sighting, and nice shot!

Kyna said...

Wow, awesome hawk photo! I live in the country in NC, and we have a lot of red-tailed hawks that hang around.

I saw you mention that they hang around the bird feeder...in the very first post of my blog, I posted a picture of one that is sitting on the hook of my backyard birdfeeder, right out the bathroom window. I had to stand on the toilet to get the pic, I'm glad it didn't fly away before I got my camera either lol.

Love your blog, btw :D

Dawn Fine said...

Nice shot..
So should i be expecting a blog post from you soon???
See u in cyberspace

cindyzlogic said...

Great capture! Similiar thing happened in our backyard with a Cooper's Hawk.
re: AWOL...join the club...glad to have you back!