Henry Rifle Forums

A little while ago we had a "hunter visitor" stop by to check out the neighborhood. He lighted on top of my patio fence. I was glad he stayed while I quickly got my Nikon. This is an amateur photo, but it turned out pretty well.

Click on the pic for the big view---he really is a beautiful hunter,and posed nicely (great coloring and profile!) for this photo

Nice! Double click and it gets really big.

It is a beautiful hawk, a redtail? We used to have a few of them in the woods behind the house that I moved from in 2012. I always had to keep an eye on the chihuahua when she was out in the yard, lest she become a meal for one of them.

You asked if our visitor was a redtail? I really cannot tell from the photo, Dutch. Plus I was moving along too quickly at that moment: grabbing the camera, extending the zoom lens, and trying to not scare him away all at the same!! And the fact that I'm red-green colorblind.

I must admit, it was a very enjoyable & exciting couple of minutes. That's the second hunter visitor on my fence in the last couple of years. The first one landed about 2 feet from me when I was working on the patio one day! That was an experience for sure.

Deadwood Dutch wrote:It is a beautiful hawk, a redtail? We used to have a few of them in the woods behind the house that I moved from in 2012. I always had to keep an eye on the chihuahua when she was out in the yard, lest she become a meal for one of them.

Nice closeup photo of a beautiful bird - believe that is a Cooper's Hawk.

Nice hawk. We have way too many around the Upstate area. Rabbits and squirrels are really taking a beating around the country areas. I know it's coyotes also.

That's a nice photograph of one.

daytime dave wrote:Nice hawk. We have way too many around the Upstate area. Rabbits and squirrels are really taking a beating around the country areas. I know it's coyotes also.

We have lots of hawks, too. They hunt birds, mice, voles, squirrels, chipmunks, and rabbits in our backyard, which raises the blood pressure of our two chickens (who are safely fenced in because of the dangerous environment around here).

But, what is quite notable about the resurgence of the larger predators like Coyotes, Coydogs, and Bobcats in our area (which is mostly a beautiful State Forest and numerous State Parks scattered along both sides of the lower CT River) is the huge numbers of Turkey Vultures we regularly see perched in trees and on rooftops (very eerie) or gliding ominously in the sky. Yesterday, there were no less than two dozen circling a few hundred feet overhead. It was a true spectacle... and a sure sign that a very large creature was lying dead nearby.

Our small game animals take a real beating from hawks. We are down on rabbits and some other small game due to the predators and the over population of hawks that come down from up north and winter in the area here with the little milder climates. I have drove north on I-81 from Md. line to Harrisburg, Pa. in the winter and have counted 40 or more hawks sitting in trees along the interstate and it is hard to say how many are far enough away off the road that you don't see them. I don't bother them because of the law but I don't have to like them and how they have decimated the rabbit and grouse population we once had. The rabbit should be on the endangered list with the low numbers we have here. Give me small game animals any time over those killers sitting in every tree.