Northern Goshawk

Please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but I do believe this is the Accipiter Northern Goshawk. She's playing a little hide and seek.

Peek-a-boo, I see you!

We do tend to have quite a few birds of prey in the area so it's always a treat when they come right down into the yard. Though I fret the whole time about the safety of the Cardinals or darling little innocent birds, like Nuthatches, Woodpeckers, Purple Finches, etc. On a normal basis we have a very small supply of nuisance birds so for that I am thankful.

This particular day, Thanksgiving, she was looking for a warm meal. A warm meal that was not to be found in my yard.

Our bird feeders are quite far from the house. I'd say about 30 ft. Unfortunately it has to be outside the dogs fence because our Pug, Winston, likes to eat anything in sight. Including left over birdseed shells. We do have invisible fence around the outside of the fence but he doesn't go out there to often. Anyway, having the feeders so far away makes it very difficult to take pictures with my 7.1 mp, 10x optical zoom camera. I got lucky this day.

The Goshawk sat in the tree contemplating the situation and looking regal. Finally she could wait no longer and dove directly into the Burning Bushes next to the feeder. How she didn't hurt herself I don't know but she seemed rather distraught when she came up empty. Since we did have a few House Sparrows that particular day my hopes were for her success. But alas, she moved on.

It took me a while to figure out what bird this was even with a bird book, only because it appears as though she has a white ring all the way around her neck. However, since she so closely represents the Goshawk, including the white rump, that's what I'm going with.

I find myself with SO many pictures from late Summer and Fall that I had intended on posting. Does anyone else have this problem? I tend to hoard them for fear of running out.