Wednesday, July 25, 2007

A new neighbor


For the past couple of weeks, we've been noticing that a hawk has been hanging around our area, usually perching in my neighbor's tree. We believe he/she has a nest there, but we only saw it fly by...until today.

I saw the hawk fly very low through our side yard and toward the back of the house. When I quietly walked around to the back of the house, I saw it perched on our fence. This photo was taken through the door, for fear of opening it and scaring him/her off. Unfortunately, despite turning it's head toward me several times, I wasn't able to capture it with the camera.

If, from this picture, you can tell what kind of hawk it is, I'd really like to know!

4 comments:

-Sepp said...

It looks like a juvenile Red tailed hawk which are pretty common in our area.
I had found a young hawk about 6 years ago while at Camp Perry and brought it home and raised it until it was able to fly. It stayed on a "T" perch I built on my back porch.

Maggie said...

thanks, -sepp...

Kel-Bell said...

Yes, it is a young red tail. He or she will get her red tail feathers next season. The spots will fade as well.

If it is a large red tail, it is a female. The males are about 15% smaller in size.

Also, do you frequently smell skunk in the early mornings? If so, you have a great horned owl nesting near by.

The RT hawks build new nests each year, and the old ones are taken over by the owls, whose favorite food is skunk.

Maggie said...

Fortunately - we don't have the smell of skunk...but this is the first year for the hawks in this tree.

While I'd love to have owls for neighbors, I certainly don't look forward to the smell of skunk...lol!

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