Our house backs onto a hundred acres or so of oak scrub wilderness (part of Belmont Canyon). So after our last cat died, the yard was slowly invaded by rabbits, squirrels, and the occasional raccoon. Last year I resurfaced the deck, which meant I had odd stacks of very long lumber lying around. One piece projected out over the yard, about 15 feet off the ground, and became a popular perch for a variety of birds, until this fellow showed up. It was a perfect perch for a lazy predator - instead of circling endlessly, he could take his ease while keeping an eye out for his next lunch-on-the-hoof.
Eventually he got accustomed to me and my camera, and I could get as close as 10 feet before he'd bail (which is what he's doing in this shot).
I think it's a
Red-Shouldered Hawk
Sadly, one hawk is not enough to make much of a dent in our rabbit population, though the raccoons have disappeared. Also, he's not as tough as he looks - the local tiny songbirds gave him no end of grief (hilarious! I wish I had video of that) and he's been scarce for months now.
One squirrel turned out to be the most stubborn. He's still out there, rolling a pinecone on the roof over my head every morning.
2 comments:
Neat! And yes, I would dearly like to see video of the songbirds hassling this hawk :)
minor point: in the Blogger style you're currently using, links look the exact same as body text, until clicked. O.O?
No video, alas.
Once when the hawk was in the top of the big birch by the house, 3 or 4 little birds came into the birch about ten feet lower, and basically climbed up, invading his turf from below, peeping madly all the while. The hawk tried to look aloof, like a cat, but when they got close he took off.
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