{"id":429,"date":"2011-01-10T18:16:46","date_gmt":"2011-01-11T00:16:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/gazette\/2011\/01\/10\/110110_backyardhawk\/"},"modified":"2022-03-18T18:22:45","modified_gmt":"2022-03-18T23:22:45","slug":"110110_backyardhawk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/2011\/01\/10\/110110_backyardhawk\/","title":{"rendered":"Back Yard Visitor"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>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 &#8211; 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.<\/p>\n<p>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&#8217;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.<\/p>\n<p>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?<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>Click on the small photos below to see bigger versions. Keep in mind that these were shot through less than pristine window glass (it&#8217;s been a bit dusty around here lately).<\/p>\n<p>Note: This is a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.audubon.org\/field-guide\/bird\/coopers-hawk\" title=\"Audobon's Guide To American Birds\">Cooper&#8217;s Hawk<\/a> (<em>Accipiter cooperii<\/em>). We &#8212; rather, I &#8212; don&#8217;t see this species very often, so I had to do some googling to discover its identity.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/images\/miscphotos\/hawk_backyard1.jpg\" data-rel=\"lightbox-image-0\" data-rl_title=\"\" data-rl_caption=\"\" title=\"\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"border: 1px solid #cccccc;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/images\/miscphotos\/hawk_backyard1-t.jpg\" alt=\"Hawk\" hspace=\"10\"><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/images\/miscphotos\/hawk_backyard2.jpg\" data-rel=\"lightbox-image-1\" data-rl_title=\"\" data-rl_caption=\"\" title=\"\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"border: 1px solid #cccccc;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/images\/miscphotos\/hawk_backyard2-t.jpg\" alt=\"Hawk\" hspace=\"10\"><\/a><\/div>\n<p>*Can&#8217;t place what a Mexican Elder looks like, much less a denuded one? Here&#8217;s a little better shot of the tree, along with the partially obscure bird.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"border: 1px solid #cccccc;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/images\/miscphotos\/mexicanelderandhawk.jpg\" alt=\"Photo - Hawk in Mexican Elder\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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 &#8211; the figure was definitely bird-shaped, but much larger than the usual vagrants. I moved to another window to&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/2011\/01\/10\/110110_backyardhawk\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Back Yard Visitor<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nature","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=429"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9137,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429\/revisions\/9137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}