Category Archives: Birds

The juvenile red-shouldered hawk that I saw up close and personal three weeks ago has apparently made itself at home in the small grove of a half dozen pine trees that cover the hill below our yard.

Usually it’s either flying around or it goes up into the canopy higher up in these trees, but sometimes it will come down into the open on the lower branches. Whether sitting or flying, it’s become quite vocal and loud, leaving no doubt of its species.

While it was sitting up there a trio of ducks flew by. I could hear them quite a ways off – and so could the hawk. I saw them coming up from the canyon off on the left and doing a big “bananna pass” (an airshow term, but it applies here) right over our heads. I noticed that the hawk was watching them intently…like, you know…a hawk! I could see the little thought bubble over its head. “I’m small now, but give me a year or so! Thems are good eatin’!”

In the meantime, if it wants to keep well fed and grow up big and strong, this is a good area. (No doubt the reason we have other red-shouldered hawks, Coopers hawks, night hawks, and red-tailed hawks in abundance.) There are plenty of squirrels, rabbits, skunks, raccoons, and other small critters to feast on, not to mention the mourning doves and twenty or thirty other types of birds. And lizards.

I don’t mind most of those critters, but we get the odd rat in the yard from the ivy that the neighbors love to have growing all over their fences. If our hawk pal wants to feast on rats, he’ll have my undying support.

It’s spring. Love is in the air. So were a half-dozen red tailed hawks!

Earlier in the day there had been four red shoulder hawks harassing the ravens and crows, so when I first saw these six later in the afternoon I though it might be them. They were pretty high up there.

But as they started to come down lower and pair off a bit it became clear that they were red tailed hawks.

They settled in, circling and soaring about 500-600 feet up.

Then all of a sudden this one buzzed me at about 50 feet. It was like the “sneak pass” at a Blue Angels or Thunderbird airshow.

I wasn’t complaining!

It gave me a great opportunity to get some much better pictures.

I was also looking for the notch missing from the wing of one red tailed hawk that we’ve seen for a couple of years. I didn’t see it.

I don’t know if that means that the bird that had the notch of feathers missing grew them back, if they just weren’t here today, or if they didn’t make it through the winter. These might be their offspring. I’ll keep looking, it was quite distinctive.

One one that had buzzed me climbed up with the others. I guess they figured that I was mostly harmless.

They were dancing and coming together in what I assume is a mating ritual. Every now and then a couple would seemingly lock claws and fall for a ways before releasing each other.

Mating? Fighting? Both? I don’t know. But they were going fast when they were doing it, so I got a LOT of blurry, unuseable photos!

They are magnificent animals and it’s spectacular to see them!

I hope that I get more chances to see them up close. And when we find “The Forever Home” I hope it’s someplace that has its own population of hawks and other raptors!

The hummingbird feeder attracts other critters. I thought that it would only be hummingbirds because of how the thing is designed, but it hasn’t slowed down the squirrels, the house finches, the towhees, and the hooded orioles.

I had just gotten up and went to the kitchen sink and saw this at the feeder. That’s *NOT* a hummingbird. Slightly smaller than the hooded orioles, much larger than the house finches. Different tail than the squirrels.

Moving to where it’s not so backlit and fiddling with the cell phone photo settings (I figured that I had only seconds before it saw me and flew away) it was obvious that it was a downy woodpecker!

It did spot me, but didn’t immediately take off. I’ve seen downy woodpeckers around every now and then, but I’ve never seen it at the feeder.

It took its time and as you can see, it pretty much cleaned out the feeder. There’s another feeder around the corner that seems to be still left to just the hummers, so they’ll live until I can get this refilled.

As long as I can keep the squirrels away. The chunky monsters tear down the vines climbing up there, then they swing on the feeders until it breaks and falls so they can get at the food. Evil, furry, little bastards!