We had a hawk in our Maple tree!

[Jean in Newcastle]

This darn bird book - none of the colors look exactly like the bird in the tree. We think it was either a Peregrine Falcon or a Merlin. But it was more red-brown than either of them (in the pictures at any rate). Both of them eat songbirds and our bird feeder (which is on the aforementioned Maple tree) was conspicuously absent of all songbirds!

[newlifemom]

Jean,

In the immortal words of my father the avid birder. "If you can't tell what kind of hawk it is then it is probably a red tailed." I don't know if that is true or not but it is my last resort to identifying them. Sorry about the song birds. He might be after squirrels. Is it time for the babies to be born. We had a hawk in our backyard eat them. I wasnt very sad about it either.

Pam

[Ellie]

which is right outside the window of my office so I can simultaneously goof off on the computer and watch nature happening :-)

Haven't seen that hawk in a couple of weeks; guess the feeding isn't all that great:D

The other day, though, there were *three* large hawks--red-tailed?--swooping over my neighbor's house, from the front yard all the way to the street, almost low enough to touch the car parked there. I don't know what they were hunting, but from *my* vantage point it was fascinating.

[MichelleWI]

How exciting! For you. Not for the songbirds.

Is there any chance you could get a picture of it so we can help you with the identification?

Meanwhile, there are pictures at eNature.com that might help you.

The Merlin (http://enature.com/fieldguides/detail.asp?allSpecies=y&searchText=merlin&curGroupID=1&lgfromWhere=&curPageNum=1) and the Peregrine Falcon (http://enature.com/fieldguides/detail.asp?allSpecies=y&searchText=peregrine&curGroupID=1&lgfromWhere=&curPageNum=1).

[Cornerstone Classical]

We have a hawk here too. I don't know how many times I've seen him up on a tree branch with a mouse or mole draped across it having lunch. The down side is that we have 4 or 5 black crows always hanging around fighting him for his kill.

[Jean in Newcastle]

MichelleWI - Oh, he didn't eat our songbirds! They waited until he was gone for about ten minutes and then then came hopping out of shrubs, flying out of nearby trees. . . I'm going to look up those pictures you posted. We tried to get a picture but as soon as my ds10 got the camera set, our neighbor put up his garage door and the bird flew off!

Newlifemom - We do have a hungry squirrel around here. My dd6 feeds him peanuts. My dh says he's going to be a 20 lb. squirrel by next fall!

Red tail hawk was one of our guesses - but he seemed a bit smaller than the bird book said a red-tail should be. But maybe he wasn't full grown.

[Jenny in Atl]

We have a number of hawks in our yard as we have lots of songbirds, chipmunks, and other such goodies for their diet. We also live near a major river with lots of open fields, perfect for hunting. They really are magnificent birds.

[Jean in Newcastle]

Update: we've identified our "pet" hawk. We got a picture of it the other day and a local birder has identified it as a "Cooper's Hawk". Another name for a Cooper's hawk is a chicken hawk. It has a nest in our neighbor's tall Douglas Fir so we've seen it a number of times. A couple of days ago it got quite a headache after flying into our living room window! I'm so glad that neither the window nor the hawk got hurt. It made a loud crash!

[MichelleWI]

How neat! Our family would be thrilled at such an opportunity.

We located an eagles' nest about 5 miles outside of town and will be visiting it frequently to see if anyone nests there this year.

While out that way, we noticed that the Canada Geese are pairing off for the year and nesting along the flowage.

Our final sighting of the day (Sunday) was a prairie chicken 20 feet up a birch tree methodically eating bud after bud. LOL

[mcconnellboys]

Yeah, there's a lot of variability in them, but they are the most common type to see in your yard. Merlins are quite a lot smaller than red-tails, so look at the overall size, too.

Regena