I spy. I spy a hawk. (Actually, my dogs flushed it out two doors down in the low bushes). I spy what I think is a juvenile Cooper’s Hawk.
What do YOU think? Any hawk aficianados out there? (I pulled the middle photo when I googled photos of immature hawks in the Pacific NW, the other two are mine). I’m not at all familiar with this type of hawk, but when looking at juvenile Osprey or Fishhawks (which is what our lake is named for), they didn’t look anything like this. I quickly jostled the dogs inside, grabbed my camera and went in search up in the high limbs of the tree where it had nestled after we so rudely bothered it.
There it was, calmly waiting. At first it blended so well into the drab colors of the tree and mosses that I couldn’t really tell if it was still there. But, by golly, I had a welcome photo op when I spied it just sitting perched waiting for me to make it famous!
I was quiet and then it shifted position so I went to the other side and got a different viewpoint of its breast feathers and tail from the underside. I thought to myself, if I make some sounds with my mouth, maybe it’ll look at me! So I did a sort of smooching sound and darn it if it didn’t look right down at me rather bewildered and fascinated!
Later, I went back to check the pine tree where we first discovered it there were gobs of loose black feathers blanketing the tree roots, so that's why it was under there. Another mystery solved. The surrounding birds are pretty quiet tonite--not like normal when I hear the crows squawking their sub-human sounds in the trees across the street from this spot. Maybe it was one of their own they lost tonight.
So, like Roy Kelley says, have your camera in hand…you just never know what opportunities lie right in front of your eyes!
(P.S. I was walking my puppy, Kasa later and found a $20 bill on the ground--gosh what a lucky night!)
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