Hawk!

I'm really only carrying my camera to work so I can use it on the way home nowadays; it's too dim in the mornings, the shots are very grainy. See, for instance, the goldfinch I posted this weekend, and now today... after all, I'm not going to resist a shot just because it might (probably will) not turn out perfect. So, that's to say that as I walked by the fence line I caught out of the corner of my eye a great white wing flutter in the parking lot. Probably a gull, I thought, but I checked - and whatever it was was facing off against a squirrel, which had run under a car and was chittering and screaming while another squirrel unfroze itself and ran for a tree.

Well, the bird turned out to be a hawk - a red-tailed, I'm pretty sure - well, no. A juvenile Cooper's hawk, Mike says and that fits much better, especially the tail and breast! He stalked around the parking lot for a moment or two, then flew up to sit on the fence, then in a tree, another tree, on the corner of the building, and finally gave up and left.

These aren't great shots - the one of him across the parking lot on the building is really grainy (the one of him on the asphalt is flat out horrible, my camera focused on the rails!), - but you can see him - pale breast, long tail, dark wings and face. Beautiful boy.