More Hawks

[Trojansoc]

I've lived in this corner of the woods for nearly ten years, and the only glimpse I've had of a hawk has been at a great distance. Yesterday afternoon, I was excited to get a rather poor shot of a sharp-shinned hawk. Much to my surprise, this morning I was outside doing some work (and had fortunately taken my camera outside with me) when I heard a hawk screaming. By the time I could grab my camera and squeeze off a couple of shots, this guy was nearly directly over me.



He disappeared over my house and when I found him again, the shot was at a much greater distance.



He went behind some trees, then circled around again (or so I first thought), He was turned nicely, even if it was a long shot with a 400mm lens. You can imagine how surprised I was when I began editing and realized I was looking at another type of hawk. If I'm correct, the first one this morning was a red-shouldered hawk and the second a red-tailed (an immature red-tailed if I'm reading my field guide correctly). Definitely a different variety.....not the difference is tail and chest patterns.





So, in less than 24 hours, three different species of hawk shot within a quarter-mile of my house after seeing only one in nearly ten years.

[robar]

paul,
i'll bet you just haven't been noticing

[Trojansoc]

lol.....Until I started shooting, I would agree with you fully, roy. But, in the year or so that I have been shooting birds, these are the first I have seen. My wife and I have talked at length about this subject being one of the neatest things about getting hooked on photography. We had no idea of just how many different birds did inhabit our yard and the immediate wooded environment.

BTW....I shared these photos with the bird identification folks on a birding forum, and they identified the first hawk as an adult red shouldered, but the second was a year-old juvenile red shouldered.