With most of the feeders empty, there have been pretty slim pickins, bird-wise, the last few days. But on Wednesday, January 14, several users got some interesting shots of what looks like the shadow of a large bird perched on top of the camera pole. These are by leacox, birdbrain, and lynch, respectively:
My guess is that that’s a Red-shouldered Hawk. The size and posture look right (especially in the middle shot; that looks like a Red-shouldered hunch to me), and perching on a pole to watch for prey is a standard Red-shouldered hunting strategy. There certainly are other possibilities (an up-past-its-bedtime Barred Owl?), but that’s my favorite.
What do you think?
Update: User lynch wondered in chat if we might get the Welder people to put a mirror in the field of view, aimed to allow us to see the top of the pole. I don’t imagine that that’s going to happen (and if it did, we’d then be constantly complaining that the mirror needed cleaning), but it’s a really neat idea.
And then, maybe a second mirror angled to give us a view up the full length of the bare tree in the middle distance, the top of which we can’t see currently, but where we know (from Chris’s forwarded photo) that the Red-shouldered Hawk likes to perch, too. Or maybe a mirror with a servo actuator, so we can adjust it in realtime to point where we want! Or maybe we should put the camera on a Mars-rover-style ROV, so we can drive it around and go visit the river! Or…
Hm. Or not. 🙂