Ok, I am posting twice in one day...but you just have to see what I just saw. All morning I have been working around the kitchen. As I make a stew for Christmas Eve, I keep looking at the little Sparrows, Finches and occasional Cardinal who feed at the bird feeder outside the kitchen window. It's very cold and windy - birds really need help to keep that fat going for insulation. Imagine my excitement when I glanced out again and saw the following. We have three digital cameras. An older Sony Cybershot 2.1 megapixels, a Nikon D50 with a Nikkor 18-55 mm lens and a Nikon D70 with a Nikkor 70-300 mm lens. Hubster and I watched for a little as I snapped away...first with the Cybershot (it has the capability of a zoom):
(You can click on any of them to see more detail.)
Next, with the D50 (zoomed out as far as it would go)...
and finally with the telephoto lens and the D70. Mind you this is through screening and ice and condensation on the outside of the window
Cool, huh? I think he was waiting for someone to come and use the smorgasbord...as I didn't see him dip into the birdseed on the lower portion - at all! (These photos were Photo-shopped for 'levels' only. You can see the difference in cameras and lens, can't you?)
6 comments:
He was hungry, too, and knew this spot was certainly a high yield area perhaps. Interesting that you caught him looking all different ways. Understandable that no other birds were at the feeder. Looks like a kestrel? would you say?
When one has bird feeders, the bird of prey just seems a pest and destroys all our caring plans for the smaller birds, but nature has a way of evening the numbers no matter how we strive otherwise.
Thanks for sharing and comparing.
I wonder if that hawk has any idea that he could wind up as a painting, he looked like he was posing for you!
Hi Ruth - out here when you drive distances, you see one perched on top of a telephone pole or tree about every mile. We have a family that lives in the woods on our property. I think they are Cooper's Hawks. I think this is a young one. We watch our little dogs carefully when they are out and about, too. Big birds! I was just so surprised to see it there, instead of little birds. :0
Hey Leann - got that thought already, too! He IS a beauty - or she? Only a bird expert could tell.
Hi Pattie, Here in southern NH, we have the hawks flying about frequently. Living in the woods and on a little mtn. affords any number of them hovering over our bird feeders. It is an interesting phenomonen to be watching the smaller birds at the feeder all of a sudden just FREEZE. We've learned to start searching the sky or nearby taller trees when we see the "freeze". Never had a hawk show up as close as you have, though. I love Leann's comment. Cute.
We have noticed that everyone sort of scatters when they are flying overhead..in a hunting pattern. One thing I think is very interesting are the marauding bluejays during hatchling time. They are BAD boys...as they frighten moms and dads off their nests and then one will go in for a birdnapping. Such a sad occurence of nature. But survival of the fittest rules the woods.
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