The maids were toiling quietly. Berry was in the back of the house. I was sitting at my desk around 9:30am, when suddenly and all at once, a large Red Tailed Hawk swooped down from a tree into our backyard. This does not happen every day, hence the posting of it here. Cosmo was actually in the backyard at the time but did not seem to notice the large raptor's visit.
The hawk finished his tour of our backyard by landing confidently on the back fence. It was facing our neighbor's yard, so we got a great look at its brown and banded tail. But, this was a "RED TAILed hawk..." you are saying. Well, it was a juvenile red-tailed hawk, so the tail on this one was not red at all. It was banded in two tones of brown, about twelve bands in all.
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I yelled for Berry to come quickly. We scrounged around for an old pair of binoculars that I do not keep handy. The Sibley's Bird Guide was much easier to find.
The hawk was still on the fence when we settled down to look at it. We think it was looking for squirrels in our neighbor's yard. This was not the first Red Tailed Hawk seen in our heavily treed but smallish east Memphis property. But anytime is a good time for a hawk.
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Robert
photos courtesy of kmcgowan, rfowler
