This hawk had killed a pigeon(?) and brought it to this tree on the corner of a suburban block to eat it

It turns out the crows *had* been trying to scare off a hawk that had killed a pigeon and settled into the tree to eat it. At first I could only see the occasional feather raining down, until I moved to where I could see through a gap in the branches.

The hawk was huge. It’s probably one of the hawks that I see around regularly, but most of the time they’re up in the sky or perched high enough I don’t have any sense of their scale.

#photo #birds #hawk #nature #BirdOfPrey

A hawk with light brown underside and darker brown wings, perched on a thick tree limb with branches and pine needles behind it, holding the remains of a smaller (dead) bird to the trunk with its claws, leaning over with its hooked beak.

The same hawk from another angle, looking up from its meal in the direction of the camera. Two cables run across the frame, not quite blocking the view.

On Photog.Social

This was just on the corner of a block in the suburbs. People were still out watching (and the crows hadn’t returned) when I decided to continue on my walk.

Usually I see the red-tailed hawks out by the nearest school field or the greenbelt by the power transmission lines, and I only see the smaller cooper’s hawks along the residential streets.

On Photog.Social
Cross-posted on K2R
Link on Twitter

This hawk had killed a pigeon(?) and brought it to this tree on the corner of a suburban block to eat it. People were standing out in their front yards watching it. Feathers were dropping as it ate.

It’s probably one of the same hawks I see in the area from time to time, but it looked huge. Though that could just be from it being a lot closer to the ground than I usually see them!

On iNaturalist

These crows were making a huge racket

As soon as I stepped out the door for a walk this morning, I heard a lot of crows making a lot of noise down the street. They were perched on a telephone pole, flying up and swooping around like they were trying to scare off a hawk.

Of course I walked toward them to see what was going on.

By the time I reached the end of the block, the crows had given up and flown off. But I noticed people were out in their front yards looking up at a tree…

#photo #crow #TelephonePole #birds #BlackAndWhite

A telephone pole with at least 15 crows perched on the cross piece and wires, seen from below with the wires and crosspiece forming diagonals.

On Photog.Social
Cross-posted on K2R

These crows were making a huge racket, some of them taking off, swooping and perching again, trying to scare off a hawk that had caught a pigeon and was eating it in a nearby tree. The hawk didn’t leave. The crows did.

On iNaturalist

Smoky sun, late afternoon.…

Smoky sun, late afternoon.

We’ve had some ashfall over the past week, but for the most part, the air quality at ground level has only been awful, not unbearable. Especially since the heat wave subsided.

But the light has just been *wrong*. Normal clouds in the morning breaking up to reveal a layer of smoke behind them, letting through yellow-orange, almost but not quite late afternoon light at midday. I went out for a walk after work, once it had cooled down and saw this.

#photo #smoke #sun

kelsonv: “Smoky sun, late afternoon.…”

On Photog.Social

I don’t have a clever caption for this one, but thought it was cool that …

I don’t have a clever caption for this one, but thought it was cool that I caught the Croagunk *right there* while trying to decide what to do with the frog statue.

Incidentally, the frog statue is a Pokestop. And so is the historical cabin in the Sneasel picture.

I don't have a clever caption for this one, but thought it was cool that ...

On Wandering.shop