Back Yard Visitor

I glanced at the backyard just before lunch this morning, and my eye caught an unusual shape in our Mexican Elder*, which has been significantly denuded by the winter cold. I looked a bit more carefully – the figure was definitely bird-shaped, but much larger than the usual vagrants. I moved to another window to get a different perspective, and sure enough, it was a hawk.

I quickly walked to my office, mounted the zoom lens on my SLR (there must be a natural and immutable law of nature that holds that the lens you need at any given time isn’t the one on your camera) and moved back to the window, not at all sure that the hawk would still be there. But he was, and he posed for a wide variety of shots, occasionally jumping to the ground, then back into the low-hanging branches of the tree.

I was so intent on watching his head that I failed to notice that he had something grasped in a claw. I finally recognized the carcass of a bird, probably a dove, and one much worse for the wear. I wonder if the hawk body-slammed its prey in our backyard and spent some time there tearing it up?

After a few minutes, I think he noticed me moving from window to window, pointing a camera lens at him, and decided to retire to a more secluded spot.

Click on the small photos below to see bigger versions. Keep in mind that these were shot through less than pristine window glass (it’s been a bit dusty around here lately).

Note: This is a Cooper’s Hawk (Accipiter cooperii). We — rather, I — don’t see this species very often, so I had to do some googling to discover its identity. 

*Can’t place what a Mexican Elder looks like, much less a denuded one? Here’s a little better shot of the tree, along with the partially obscure bird.