Winter Fare

Sharp-shinned Hawk (adult)

photograph © Bruce A. Morrison

(click on image for a larger view)

Had our first winter storm yesterday...well it's not really winter yet, we've got a few weeks before the solstice arrives.  Had high winds and around 4-5 inches of snow.  This kind of weather makes for good studio time...or a good book and a cup of hot soup!  

The neighborhood song birds really come in to the feeders at this time of the year, and become regular guests until spring.  Other birds come "visiting" for the guests, which really can make for some shorts bursts of excitement.  This morning Georgie was over in the studio with me and alerted me to some wild activity out front...a Sharp-shinned Hawk was chasing the Goldfinches and Juncos around the front yard!

The bird landed in the Silver Maple out front and I grabbed the small camera and took a couple shots of it before it launched off into a chase after finches over and past the corn crib, the last we saw of it for now.

"Sharpies" are real cool little hawks, they're the smallest member of the accipiter family in North America.  The bird we hosted this morning was an adult and appeared to be a female.  Females birds of prey are larger than the males...their plumage is the same though.  This adult is recognized by the slate gray back and wing tops, the orange barring on the breast and their red iris.  An immature bird would be brown on back with a streaked brown/buff breast.  If you know your accipiters you'd recognize this bird as a female because the size is basically the same as a male Cooper's Hawk - the next accipiter up the size chart.  The easiest way to determine whether a bird is a female Sharp-shinned Hawk or a male Cooper's Hawk, is to look at the tail of the bird in flight or perched.  The Sharpie has a "squared off" or "notched" effect on the end of it's tail while a Cooper's tail end has a "rounded" effect...they can be a hard call unless you have more time to observe and make a distinction.

I noticed a slight blood stained tinge on this bird's talons and foot pad; I'm assuming it already had break fast and was working on lunch!  

Hawks are one of the reasons I grew to like birds as a kid and they still fascinate me today...my very first commissioned art work (india ink) was of a hawk (Red-tailed), when I was a teenager.  Couldn't imagine a better way to earn a living!  Imagine doing what you like and getting paid for it!  Blew me away.  It's not as easy as that of course, but I feel fortunate to be here and doing and seeing what we have here each day and season!

Here's to the season, and more drama in your life!

Late April Fools?

We've been enjoying some nice days off and on at Prairie Hill Farm...nice weather wise. We've played hit and miss the past couple weeks with snow storms and got to dodge them until last night.

We get April snow storms often enough, but it's always harder when the weather lulls us into a zone of contentment...then springs the white stuff back on us; kind of like a late April Fools joke of sorts. Kind of mean spirited I think!

We didn't get any where near what was forecast but the wind is really making things tough on the birds and other critters here with what snow we did get.


This morning at breakfast Georgie and I were treated to some drama in the yard. An adult Cooper's Hawk came barreling into the yard scattering all the Robins, Juncos, and other birds. Some Juncos were so disoriented in the chase that they flew into the windows trying to get away.

The bird flew to a patch of prairie grass we hadn't burned yet and walked in and among the grasses and forbs trying to route out anyone that might be hiding within. It was fun watching the hawk stalking it's prey on foot. This is a characteristic of this order of hawks (accipiter) that we've watched many times over the years...kind of reminiscent of the Jurassic Park Veloci Raptor scenes!

Photos taken through the kitchen windows are never the best but the quickest way to scare off a skittish raptor like this is to open a window, so I tried a couple shots through the glass and even a short bit of video footage which I might show some other time. The thing that identifies this bird as an adult is the orangish barring on the breast, the dark gray back, and the red eyes.

Weather like this just keeps us inside a while longer; guess we'll just keep working at those indoor jobs for a few more days yet...but an occasional glance out the windows might bring more fun distractions...