My friend Gary works for the Highway Department and he was kind enough to let me know there was a Red-tailed Hawk that looked like it was nesting nearby. So, on a cold, rainy spring morning, I tried to take theses pictures. The first picture shows the nest Momma Red-tail was on when I parked the car.
As soon as I stepped out of the car, she left the nest and moved to a nearby tree.
I kept inching my way closer to the nest tree and Momma Red-tail. She finally tired of me moving in her direction and took off. This picture is a little blurry because she was in motion and pretty much at the limit of my lens’ ability to focus on her. Additionaly, I enlarged this as far as I could to show her plumage for identification. Note the white breast and cinnamon colored, upper-tail surface, these are defining characters for Red-tailed Hawks, Buteo jamaicensis in the family Accipitridae.
The final image shows Momma Red-tail in flight crossing the highway near her nest tree. She was not interested in me being anywhere near her or her nest. I was not able to spot any chicks in the nest from my vantage points and I left the scene shortly thereafter to let Momma Red-tail return to her nest and regain her composure.
Thanks to my friend Gary, I had another adventure in wildlife photography and was able to obtain some interesting images for all of us to view. You can read more about these birds at Cornell Univerisity’s Lab of Ornithology website.
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