Bird of Prey Visitor
Meet the Bird of Prey that showed up here to the house yesterday! I belive this to be a Coopers Hawk and not the Sharp Shinned Hawk.
I believe this is the hawk who shows up from time to time to hunt our small piece of property. Eating on the song birds who are so plentiful here at home. I did not add all the photographs I got of this bird here in this post, however you can go to the main page at mrsroadrunner.com where the album I put all the photographs of this bird of prey will be on the front until next week.
Typically I wait for at least a week before I put such things up. However since Guy is my biggest fan he recommended putting this series up anyways. This is my way of just thinking about things before I put it out in the public.
I thought it strange as I was working on what else, my photography when all the birds went quiet! So quiet you could hear a pin drop and this is not common. Sure the birds will go quiet when say someone is walking by, or a cat is on the hunt. Then when the danger has passed within several minutes the birds will start, "talking", again.
This did not happen yesterday. So, I investigated. This has been going on for years now, I will go to the front or back to see what is going on. Typically turning on the water hose to run off someones cat.
Not yesterday. First I thought well a dove is in the back, no big deal. We have large flocks of doves and they do hang out here regular. Though this dove just did not look right, so I grabbed my camera. That is when this bird of prey jumped on the rock you see there.
I am a tad bit "weird", about leaving such things as piles of branches and such around here and there until the Lilacs grow out, or the leaves grow on the trees etc. to give the song birds and other small birds places to hide. Of course we have such things as the raspberries which you see here in these photographs as well. It gives the birds and other wildlife a place to hide.
You can see the back gate in these photographs. To the left there is one of our small ponds. The rock in which this bird of prey is standing on, well their is frogs all over both these ponds, toads too! On occasion we will get the snakes moving in, however you can smell when a snake has moved in!!
I am sure there are other wildlife that I do not know about? It took me some time to even know we had night time toads here!
Since all the song birds, other small birds even the doves were hiding at this point, I am not sure if this bird of prey was here to get a drink? Or if this one seen some of the frogs jumping to hide? I am just not sure?
This shot I believe the bird of prey was checking out the cats! We do have a population of cats here like most communities in America we have folks who do have one or more cats.
Now the Copper's Hawk and the Sharp Shinned Hawks I have read, and been told they are "pests". Well all respects to those folks who are cat lovers and have one or a dozen cats, I put cats into the "pest", category as well. I tell everyone who has cats to get those bells and collars off their cat if they want their cat to live long. The birds of prey, (as well as a host of other wildlife we have here), hunt cats as well!
I believe the shot above the bird of prey was checking out the cat that was over that way. I did not see my sons cat and went looking. He was in the extra room sleeping.
We have had several birds of prey here on our property. The owls of course perch in the trees and rarely will be in the trees at this time of the day. Mornings are the time to see the Owls. The Harriers have been here checking out things, I even had that one dive at me and think that Harrier was young and thought my hat was something..... the Red Tailed Hawks, eagles, vultures stay up in the sky when checking the place out. The Ravens geesh they scream and yell so loud hard for them to sneak in without being heard! Then the Osprey, Heron, other birds just pass by to go where they are going.
The dogs were inside with me when this visitor showed up. I really doubt this bird would have been here as long as it was if the dogs were out there? The dogs have been trained, told to leave the birds alone!
By this time this bird of prey knows it is being watched. I tried to be quiet but we are not as quiet as we like to think we are! Then of course the click of the camera ..... You can see in these shots that I was shooting through the kennel fence. Blurring the fence out with my lens the best I could. Happenings like this you do not have time to set up the shots etc.. Wildlife just does not pose for the camera! You got to get the shots as the operatunity arises.
The bird of prey got deeper into the raspberries I am thinking the bird did not go out the same way it went in because of where I was? It took off flying and went to the pine tree and to our front door. I made my way to the front, where the doves have already set up their nests. Again this bird of prey took off to another persons yard.
The song birds and other birds were rattled for a time, then everything went back to normal..... This Bird of Prey never did get anything to eat here at our house.
It is said if you have such birds hunting near bird feeders etc.. to take down the bird feeders for a while. Then put them back up. We have way to much going on here as far as the wildlife go for things to be that easy! I like the Birds of Prey! So I welcome them until the peace and harmony of my life gets disruptive..... as one frog is, "talking", at the moment, (there goes another frog, and another), and the birds are already wide awake outside..... that is my que to finish this up!
Thank you for stopping by and check out all this series of photographs if you wish!
