Ohhhhh a new Raptor moves into the 'hood!

My yard is a varitable playground for all things wild. We've had raccoons, rabbits, snakes, birds, bugs, squirrels, mice, Matani, and I'm pretty sure a coyote even!

We have a Red Tailed Hawk who has frequented our yard on NUMEROUS occasions. He would sit on our fence and lay in wait for some hungry little bird to hit up the neighbors birdfeeder.

Stealthy killer my ass! They are AMBUSH predators! But hey, I guess it's a bird-eat-bird world out there and ya gotta do what ya gotta do right?

Anyway, we haven't seen our Red Tailed Hawk in probably six months or more. Today I was outside with the kids and heard a squawking unlike anything I'd ever heard before! I ran outside and saw THIS little momma on the fence and ran back to get my ZOOM lens! Gregg and I have seen the chicks (three of them) in a neighbor's driveway and we could NOT figure out what kind of bird it was.. all we knew was that they were baby raptors of some sort, we are kind of thinking she may be some breed of Falcon? Well, the babies are flying now (and screaming very loudly) for their momma! The babes were up on the neighbor's roof and mom was on the fence.

I couldn't for the life of me figure out why her babies were screaming, and why SHE wasn't moving... until.......

She pulled this tasty treasure off the fence picket. YUM!

Have I mentioned that these beautiful birds of prey (sabotage killers) like to catch, pluck and eat these things in my garden? It's pretty gross! But, she IS pretty! Anyone know what she is?

I think I'll call her SPIKE.

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An after-thought. I just realized when I blew these photos up and wondered WHY they were so grainy, that I had left my ISO at 800 after the firework show.

blah!

I hope she comes back!