Why I Oughta...

  This isn't the first time I've posted about a large hawk hanging around our backyard.  But, this time it certainly was the BIGGEST hawk.  And the photos don't do this beast any justice.  I opened up the door to let Lizzie out the back and *woosh* I see and hear this thing take off from a lower tree limb and fly away towards the taller trees in the far back of our property.  I'm pretty sure it was hanging out, stalking either the squirrels or the small song birds that hang at our feeders.  But, I interrupted it. The photo at the top of this post shows that bird hanging in a large tree.  But, you can't tell from look at the photo, I'm guessing.   Here's an annotated version.  Doesn't do him justice.  He was H-U-G-E. He *might* be the same one that I saw in October of this year .  But, not sure (of course).  

We have an owl that lives on/around our block. He's been around for a while and we hear him hooting in the overnight hours during the Summer when we sleep with our windows open.  In fact, I'm pretty sure that there are/were multiple owls in the neighborhood.  I've heard them call and respond.  Maybe Momma and babes?  Or pairs/partners?  I don't know. Our neighborhood is called Randall Park in Downers Grove and has a large pond at one end of it and a creek running through one side of it, so we have plenty of wildlife.  And we're doing our part by participating in the 'Certified Wildlife Habitat' program from the National Wildlife Foundation where we've provided the necessary components of food, water , places to raise young , shelter and some sustainable practices like composting and what-have-you. So, it is a good spot for something like a family of owls to make a home around our block.  They have plenty of water, large, mature trees for shelte...

Look who I spotted on our fence?!?  A bird of prey.  See him perched on the top edge?  In the photo above, you can see how close he is to the fly-thru feeder that we see a lot of song birds eating at most mornings.  I'm pretty sure he's a Cooper's Hawk.  But, I'm not too adept at identification of hawks and my phone's zoom only does so much in terms of quality photos.  I was too excited to spot him and wanted to be sure I got a couple of photos of him, so I never got around to grabbing the binoculars and peeping at him closely.   For those keeping track at home, this is the second time I've posted about this kind of bird of prey visiting.  The first time was back in 2012 when I posted about a hawk coming into Nat's parent's backyard in Naperville.  Photo here .  Turns out, identifying this particular hawk is not the easiest as according to the folks at FeederWatch , even more advanced bird identification experts get Co...