The Hawk

So I was sitting on the back porch and the birds starting making a ruckus. A couple of mockingbirds were all divebombing what I thought at first was one of those fake owls on a post in the neighbor's garden. Judging from the clamor, every bird in the neighborhood apparently settled into the trees to cheer them on.

I thought it odd since in my experience those fake owls are a dismal failure at scaring anything. Then it moved and I realized it was a huge, real bird. It just sat nearly immobile, ignoring the little guys attacking it. Moved its head a couple of times.

It was one of those times I wished I had a better camera so I could zoom in from a distance. I got these two crummy shots from as close as it would let me get. And they're blurry. I used the no flash feature for the first time, so I wouldn't scare him and didn't realize I had to hold the camera still. But here they are anyway. Definitely click to embiggen them to get a slightly better look.





There's no way the photos come even close to conveying his size. This guy was so big I was almost afraid to get close enough to take his picture. If he wanted to, I have a feeling he could have really hurt me. I'm pretty sure it was a hawk but I didn't get nearly close enough to make a good ID.