Day of the Hawk

It's already late April, 2013, the ground is still covered with snow, and I'm still feeding the birds and other wildlife. The east window is where the action is, and the first place I check after dressing. This morning the feeding area was buzzing: Fox Squirrels, Cottontail Rabbits, Grackles, Red-winged Blackbirds, Mourning Doves, plus the usual "all-winter" birds like Chickadees and Goldfinches. The hanging feeders were covered and the ground was covered. Plus there's the indoor garden to check, and where I'm at on the computer, plus I'm working on a new heritage box. Besides all that I keep a regular check on the feeding area.
On my next check I see the place is deserted. Quite unusual for nothing to be there, but it does happen. As usual I look all around and finally see the reason: A hawk feeding on what I figure is a Junco. A Junco is a friendly little ground-feeding bird about the size of a sparrow, and quite naive about the ways of the world. I suspect the hawk caught it without much trouble.
Sorry it's not a great picture. If you have a good imagination you can see the feathers on the ground in front of it. I snapped eleven shots hoping for at least one good one. The one that would have been really good I didn't get. I'm known for getting bored, unfortunately, if I have to stand in one spot too long. The hawk seemed to be taking forever to eat its kill and move, so I got impatient and started running around doing other things. You see, I had hoped the big guy, after eating, would hop up to the horizontal landscape pole and give me a good shot.

On a return trip the good hawk was doing exactly that, but impatient me did not have the camera ready, so the hawk disappeared...but didn't go far. With just a little searching I found it in a nearby tree, still within good camera distance. Again, not a great shot, but for bird enthusiasts one can now see a couple field marks more closely: The bars on top of the tail feathers and the chestnut-colored breast, plus it's probably more than twice the size of a Robin. I'd guess 20 inches in length. The white spots on its back...I don't know. If I had to make a guess I would say the spots make it a juvenile, or, it could be molting...I don't know about that either. The "faint" breast speckles (that show up on the next shot) also suggest a juvenile.

Here's the best shot. While on the branch this classy bird cleaned itself by rubbing its bill on the branch, rubbing both feet, and ruffling its feathers several times. This is my first experience with a hawk this close, and I had never witnessed one feeding and then cleaning itself.
Then, to punctuate my experience, when it took flight, it dropped a white piece of poop.
Wow, and I saw it all.
To end this post, I have a pretty good bird identification book, one from National Geographic: "Field Guide to the Birds of North America." It's just paintings but pretty good ones. I'm going to make a wild stab here and call it a Northern Harrier (Circus cyaneus.) The size is right 16-20" and the range map puts it from South Dakota clear to Hudson Bay for summer.
Any whiz-kid nature freaks out there who want to help me with identification, please speak up.

Thanks for reading

Author’s notes

 In my fiction I do not try to create super-heroes, but rather bring alive common and regular people who try to find love, survive, and react to circumstances as best they can, and, usually, try to do the right thing. My books are more than one genre, from war to sex and violence to romance to humor to horror to fantasy to science fiction to adventure. I write in third-person with viewpoints by men, women, and children. 

Contact

nelsonjamesw@hotmail.com                            email
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B004GW465S     Author page at Amazon
http://morninginapril.weebly.com                    Website & Blog
https://www.facebook.com/#!/                         Facebook
http://subron7.hubpages.com/                          HubPages
http://twitter.com/PMGOLD                              Twitter

Feel free to contact me. (Response is not guaranteed) (The world is full of psychos and wackos)

A reminder for when you go to Amazon to read digital books, mine and many other authors: Amazon has a free APP download that allows you to read your book on any electronic device, including PC, Mac, iPad, iPhone, Android, and Blackberry.

Digital Prices vary from $0.99-$4.99. Paperback from $10-$29.95

Occasionally I list one of my books as free for a  day, sometimes more than a day. Look for those announcements on my blog, HubPages, Twitter, and Facebook

One last thing: When you visit my website, please check out the Freebies page.