Redtailed Hawk
Published by DanM April 8th, 2008 in Southern Utah Wildlife and Nature. Tags: No Tags.A Drop-In Visitor in Color Country
Soaring like a bomber, the Redtailed Hawk captured every sense I had. I was in my slippers and housecoat, feeding the chipmunks that attracted him to the hillside in the first place. He was so big that he broke the first tree branch that he landed on.
A much smaller Coopers Hawk has been a frequent visitor at our bird feeders, streaking in on a hit and run raid that left little time to admire him. But the Redtailed Hawk was a bird of a different sort. He balanced on the updrafts from the hillside, hanging in one place for minutes at a time as he hunted every rock and bush for a tasty corn-fed rodent. You could hear the chipmunks all over the hillside giving their shrill warning: “Danger! Death in the sky! Danger!”
There was plenty of time to find the camera and snap a few shots.
How magnificent! How large is he, do you estimate? Wingspan about how much? If Scruffy (my dog) had wings (what a picture!), is he about that large - or larger or smaller - ? How nifty!
Yeah … about the size of Scruffy.
He was soaring back and forth for a half hour. We didn’t want to scare him away so those pictures were taken through a window (which accounts for the loss of focus).
Wow! That’s a LOT of hawk! - For those of you who don’t know Scruffy, she’s about 15 inches long, from her chest to her rump, and she weighs 14 pounds. That’s a large hawk. What a joy to witness nature as you’re able to do, Dan. And I so applaud you for making as little impact as you can on nature - and I know you do that consciously. If only the rest of the world were as respectful as you are.