Close-up....Hawk

This is our Cooper Hawk, not mine but one that lives near by our neighborhood.  It's been here for several years and yet it may not be seen for long periods of time.  I have pictures of it on the neighbors deck, and another neighbors roof.  In that one I caught it diving down just over my head and then swooping up in a tree in the front yard where it found a nest of young robins.  They're posted in this blog somewhere.

Here it is about twenty feet out back over a bird feeder.  It took off between the the houses, maybe it saw the mouse that I have seen signs of in the grass.  What a mouser to have.

Anything Will Do For a Brief Stop Over

We've had what appears to be a young Coopers Hawk hanging around for the past week or so.  On Wednesday it decided to not land on our deck or any of the neighbors roofs but instead to use the one of the neighbors cars as a perch.  It then moved lower and closer to the pond by landing on the sign telling everyone that they are not to fish, ice skate or swim in the pond.

An Early Morning Visitor

The face of authority as is the eagle and falcon.

I got several shots of this hawk sitting on the deck railing.  The problem was that I didn't want to spook it by raising the blinds so all that could be done was to twist them open.  I didn't even know it was out there until my wife told me so I hurriedly retrieved the camera.  I edited it in PS to hide the lines from the blinds.  I love their faces.  A little HDR effect as well.  Possibly a Red Tail.  The two below are of a Coopers Hawk.  Much bigger bird.

This one was on the neighbors deck a couple of years ago.

This was last year.  A Robins nest was in the tree above it.  You can see one of the babies on the ground.  It became part of the noon day meal for this magnificent bird along with its two siblings.

Coopers Hawk Lunch Time

It took several hours for this to take place. Why I stood out in 90 + degree weather to take these photos is beyond me. Maybe because you just don't get to see it everyday.

A neighbor called and said we had a photo opp, a hawk was on the street light behind our houses. I figured that it would be gone before I got my camera. An hour and a half or so later I decided to call it quits. The bird had land on a wooden pole down the road and hadn't moved for quite some time.

I took something like 246 pictures in raw and it took me several days to get to and process the pictures to .jpg format so they would load here. I have a .pdf file I have sent to friends but the blog doesn't like it. The .pdf  has 51 photos. I will only put up a few in the sequence. This is an amazing bird. Now I need to take a trip to "hippyville-town lives in the '60s" Yellow Springs, OH where there is a raptor sanctuary and learning center. Some photos are gruesome to some people, sorry, but that is nature.

Click the images for a larger view.

Robin is excited about the hawk being near by.

Hawk swooping up to a roof top from a yard across the street.

Perched on the roof across the street from my house.

Leaping to flight, headed my direction.

Didn't even look for traffic was. Just swooped off the roof, down low across the road and up to its target.

Target, Robins nest in tree in my front yard. Came right over my head.

It has its prey but the Robins and Purple Martins and chasing it away.

Time to eat.

Finishing up.

The "dare" look.

Back for another young bird.

Leaving with the third and finale menu item.