These pictures are pretty bad, but I'm posting them to prove I'm not making stuff up. A couple of weeks ago we looked out back and saw a hawk sitting in the tree. I grabbed the camera and tried a couple of shots, but Mr. Hawk is very shy and took off as soon as I tried to get to where I could see him. The "best" of that batch is this first picture, which gave me enough to figure out that he is probably a Sharp-shinned hawk, although they are almost indistinguishable from a Cooper's hawk. The Sharp-shinned are more common, so I'm playing the odds. Both hawks are attracted to bird feeders, especially in the winter, and not because they like birdseed. We've inadvertently set up a different kind of bird feeder, I guess.
The picture is so lousy I'd kind of forgotten about it until this morning. I looked out back and our hawk was back. Same drill, I was able to get away with cracking the door open and taking a couple of pictures, but as soon as I started moving to try and get a better view, he was gone. I hate to admit it, but yes, I refilled the bird feeder so maybe he'll be back tomorrow morning.
