In this blog post, we share our close-up encounter with a Red-tailed Hawk. The largest hawk in North America came to visit and let me take some photos!
Usually when I wake up in the morning the goal is simple. I must make some coffee. Everything else will follow. On the way down the stairs I’ll stop and take a quick look out the window. On this particular morning I looked and only saw a gray squirrel at the bottom of our larger bird feeder pole. He was staring up at the bird seed in the feeders above him and then back at the feeder baffle, which had definitely confused him. I had no idea I was about to have a close-up encounter with a red-tailed hawk!
By the time I made coffee downstairs and turned back to look out the window, there was now no squirrel in site, but there was a huge hawk sitting on top of the feeder eating breakfast (and it wasn’t birdseed). After a solid 30 minutes of the hawk getting every single piece of fresh protein it could, it actually flew closer to the house, and perched on our deck railing.
We have a couple of short video clips uploaded to YouTube also: Click here to view them on our channel!
Another 20 minutes of this very full hawk hanging out, bluejays screaming, and wrens sounding their shrill alarm call, Lisa wanted to go feed the rest of the birds and asked me to see if it would fly away if I went outside. Just in case it didn’t get startled and take off, I brought my camera out with me. At most, the railing where the hawk was sitting is about 15 or 16 feet from the back door so theoretically I should be able to snap a few pics before it leaves, maybe even capture the launch and the first few wing flaps. I had no idea what was next.
After a minute or two I got a bit closer, while snapping photos like crazy. Then I moved around to the right of it. While he saw every move I made, he was way more interested in all the activity around him in the trees above. Some small songbirds even came down to eat off the feeders less than 10 feet away because they must have understood that this hawk wasn’t a threat to them. I even saw another squirrel approaching from the furthest parts of the yard before seeing what was ahead and then freezing for a good 10-15 minutes.
We named this bird Stephen “Red” Hawkings, just for laughs. Red tailed hawks come around our yard only a few times a year, we generally see Red-Shouldered Hawks or Cooper’s Hawks a lot more often. Stephen hung around for nearly an hour and a half, likely just having a bit of a food coma after eating that entire squirrel. At the closest, I was probably around 4-5 feet from him. Finally he flew up to an oak limb between our house and our neighbor’s. Lisa was able to feed the birds and everything went back to the regularly scheduled program. This was quite an experience that I recognize, and do not take for granted. Nor will I soon forget it! Thanks for reading! Please like and subscribe if you enjoyed this post!
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