My Amazing Friend Has Come Back

I was sitting at the bar in my kitchen wrapping up my day of blogging.  It was dusk.  While I was waiting for my computer to power down, I looked out the window and noticed a large bird fly across the yard of my neighbor across the street. He flew up to the trunk of a tree and ricocheted off perching in an adjacent tree.

I reached into my drawer and found my camera.  I moved quickly into the living room which has a picture window to see if I could spot him.  Just then, he took flight and landed in the oak tree in my front yard.

I was now running to the bedroom to see if I could snap a picture of him.  I had already drawn the blinds so I had to stick the camera between the slats and hope for the best.

This picture is decidedly poor quality but I have a good excuse.  It was dusky at the time I took it, I couldn’t open the blinds because doing so would frighten him off and the window screen, unfortunately, blurred the image.  If you look closely at the second branch from the ground on the right you can see him.

I first noticed my amazing visitor back in August 2013.  I spotted him again in September and once more in October.

I wrote in October that I gathered as much information about red-shouldered hawks from my local wildlife organization as I could.  I learned that the southern populations of these raptors are not migratory and their courting display occurred between January and April.

I have looked and looked for my friend and had given up ever seeing him again.  Today, my amazing friend has come back.