Our Cooper's Hawk

[Bugbear]

Very cool. We have a peregrine falcon that hunts our yard (2 acres, downtown Jefferson) by day, and barred owls and barn owls that hunt it by night. Birds of prey in town are reassuring, but I have not heard the bobwhites in a while now.....

Not to worry though, there are tons of squirrels, song birds, snakes, lizards and the like.

Just so they stay out of my koi pond, though.

I think I have heard a hawk screaching out over the desert down the street; not sure what else would make that sound. We also have owls, and of course, bats.

There is a large, crow -like black bird that lives in one of my palm trees; I forget which kind of bird it is.

I am growing blue corn this year, and I might save an ear to put in a feeder at the top of a tall pole for him. He likes to fly over several times and caw when I'm working in my back yard.

[Pleater]

My back garden is about the size of two handkerchieves, but just this afternoon I noticed the robin and some great-tits were in the apple trees. The thrushes and blackbirds are collecting nest materials, the wood pigeons have been around. I hear owls and foxes at night, and one fox took shelter under the trampoline for a while.

Last autumn the goldfinches were in the gardens along with other seedeaters, and all those buzy pecking holes in the apples, so despite its size it gets a lot of avian visitors to collect what there is on offer.

Sometimes there is a grey squirrel on the fence, but I go out and scare it off whenever I can.

Is it my imagination or weren't hawks carried on the right hand in 12/13th Century England - particularly when flown from horseback - as the left hand was used to hold the reins.

Anne the Pleater :ootd:

[mull]

Is it my imagination or weren't hawks carried on the right hand in 12/13th Century England - particularly when flown from horseback - as the left hand was used to hold the reins.

Anne the Pleater :ootd:

While I was not there, most old paintings I have seen show the bird on the left glove. Manipilating the jesses and handling the bird requires a fair bit of dexterity and most find it easier to use their dominate hand to do so while the bird sits on the off hand.

Joe

[Lachlan09]

Excellent photos !

[Livingston]

Just moments while reading the last new post here, ago a car drove by and I glanced out the window. Right behind it a red fox went trotting across the street. I watched it for a while as it explored the school grounds across the street from the house. If Joyce had been awake I would have either asked her to bring the camera down or gone running upstairs to get it with the long lens on it for a picture.

[LANCER1562]

This was taken at the Dunsmuir Highland Games in Oakland, CA a couple of years ago.
I believe he is a snowy falcon.

[wildrover]

We even got a moose wondering thru town once a number of years ago! About scared my wife to death when he trotted past her!

Yeah, I can totally see that...ungainly brutes look like horses designed by committee. They would regularly graze on my parent's vegetable garden when I was growing up, and the yearlings would usually knock the fence half over trying to jump the chainlink.

There are hawks in the open space around where I live...I usually see them in the summer, catching updrafts around the gullies. Lot of rabbits and ground rats around here...plus a den of coyotes, and quite a few foxes. The coyotes will range right down to the road, and the foxes turn up anywhere...for some reason they've adapted better to urban environments than coyotes.

[Pleater]

I found an illustration from about the year 1000ad

Though there is an ostrich in it - it would be a sight to see that taken down by anything with wings - a big Pterosaur perhaps? Maybe that South American - Quetzel - something.....

Anne the Pleater :ootd:

[MacBean]

There is a large, crow -like black bird that lives in one of my palm trees; I forget which kind of bird it is.

Is the bird quite musical? If so, then it is a long-tailed grackle. They are everywhere in the southwest.

[MacBean]

... I sort of tapered off birding at the end of the 80s because it was getting so depressing, maybe there's hope for resuming it when I get to my retirement. They've even found an ivory billed woodpecker!

Perhaps you should remain depressed as the loss of song birds has probably been rather worse than you remember. The Ivory-Billed Woodpecker was never confirmed despite endless attempts even with automated cameras. On the bright side, the birders have much improved; there are some amazing experts! The bald eagle has been one of the rarer success stories; they are not at all uncommon anymore.