So there I was, standing in my kitchen after returning home from running errands. The chickadees, who have now become habituated to expecting food when I drive in the driveway, were sitting in the tall feeder with an impatient look on their faces (if that’s even possible). Not wanting to disappoint them, and definitely not wanting to discourage this wonderful little relationship that we have, I filled up my seed bucket and went out to serve up lunch.
I took care of the chickadees’ favorite feeder first and then rounded the corner of the house to attend to the hanging feeder that the goldfinches are most fond of. As I reached for the feeder, I noticed that I was not alone. Just 30 yards away, perched in the branches of a tree at the edge of my lawn, was a gorgeous red-tailed hawk.
It immediately crossed my mind that this might actually be “Sheldon,” the then immature red-tailed hawk that spent much of last winter haunting the margins of my yard. I fully expected the hawk to fly away, but was delighted when it simply looked in my direction as it contentedly remained at its perch and watched me do my chores. A “friendly” red-tailed hawk is nothing I ever expected to encounter.
Not wanting to miss the opportunity for a photo, I stepped back into the house, ran up to my office where I had last left my camera, came back down to retrieve the “big” lens and then stepped back out onto the deck. The hawk was still there. I gently rested my camera on the corner of the house and started taking photos. The hawk watched me. I continued taking photos, and I saw the hawk’s posture change before, “Whoosh,” off it flew.
I was certain that I would have no further chance to photograph the hawk, but was completely astonished to see that the hawk had not flown because of me, but rather to make a hunting attempt in the lower part of my yard. With expert skill, the hawk maneuvered into the blackberry bushes, but whatever had captured the it’s attention had managed to escape.
Looking irritated, the hawk stood there for a second or two (probably uttering a doozy of a red-tail curse under its breath) and then took flight in the direction of the meadow. Realizing that I still had my camera, I made a last-ditch attempt to get a flight photo of the hawk, and was surprised when the bird circled back toward the house and perched in a tree down near the south edge of my lawn.
The bird wasn’t in a particularly good spot for photos, so I decided to head back inside. As I set my camera down on the kitchen table, I looked out the windows and noticed that the hawk had already flown from its perch. It was only luck that happened to point my eyes in the proper direction to see that the bird had returned to its original tree and taken up an even better perch for photography. Could I be that lucky?
Once again, I stepped out onto the porch and rested my camera against the corner of the house. Once again, the hawk saw me, but seemed unperturbed. In fact, the bird fluffed out its feathers and stretched its left leg forward a little. Perhaps it had scratched it on the blackberry bushes and felt a little sore. Whatever the reason, the bird just sat there and let me take its portrait again, remarkably unconcerned that I was there.
For the next hour, I saw the hawk zipping around the yard, probably looking for mice or voles that where attracted to the lawn under the bird feeder by fallen seeds. There certainly were enough vole tunnels in the freshly exposed lawn to tell me that the little beasts had been active. If I could get the hawk on my payroll, I might be able to spare the yard a little damage and get even more great hawk photos in the process.
Bill Danielson has been a professional writer and nature photographer for 20 years. He has worked for the National Park Service, the U.S. Forest Service and Massachusetts State Parks, and currently teaches high school biology and physics. Visit www.speakingofnature.com for more information, or go to Speaking of Nature on Facebook.