Monday, February 23, 2015

Bread-eating Buteo



It's not a great picture to be sure, but the story behind it perhaps makes up for it.
The hawk shown here moved into the neighborhood a month or two ago - it's then that I would occasionally hear it and see it lording over the local woodlands. It often roosts at the edge of the woodland in back of the house. It's big: when seen near crows, it's conspicuously bigger. Is it a nearly mature red shouldered hawk?
It's hard to get close to this bird: when I see it roosting at the edge of the woods, it generally flies when I come into view. But recently I've gotten to within five or ten feet of it. How can that be? It happens when the hawk comes down onto our deck to eat, get this, chunks of donuts I throw out for the other birds. Times must be tough when these top predators are reduced to eating donuts!
Now might be the time to put up a  platform for feeding hawks.
The photo was taken with my Canon SX700HS with the zoom lens maxed out. The hawk was maybe seventy feet away at the time. I took the photo from inside the house through a less than pristine glass door. When I went out onto the deck to get another picture, the bird flew immediately. It's been back several times since. I guess I'd better buy more donuts. 

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