Wednesday, October 8, 2014

Backyard Birdies

277/365

Sunday, Eric saw a bird swoop across the backyard.  No big deal, we get birds all the time.  But he said this one was Big.  So it was!  It was definitely a large raptor, brownish with a black and white mask.   I think he's a peregrine falcon but I'm not sure, it's face was so light, it could be an osprey, which are endangered.


At first I thought he was going to take off as soon as he sensed me approaching.  
But he didn't.  He just looked at me, and got back to looking out over the pond.  
So I was able to get a bit closer. 


He must've been on alert, the wind was fluffing up the feathers on the back of his head. 
On a slightly related note, Eric told me the bird was on the power pole.  I guess it's a sign of the times when it's a power pole, not a phone poll, because no one has land lines anymore. 


I was able to get closer.  But of course, I crossed half the backyard before he took off. 
But then he just circled, he went over the neighborhood behind us, and over the pond. 


Over and back, around and around, and pretty low flying.  
He was on the prowl for something, I was lucky to get this shot. 
It was such a cloudy rainy day, 


He zipped back over our backyard a couple times, like he wanted to get back on that telephone pole, but I was in the way.  


As I got closer to the pond, I saw this fella watching my raptor friend. 


And then he saw me.  Pretty sure he's a Great Blue Heron with the blue beak.  


What a Great Blue Heron!  

1 comments:

Unknown said...

Very cool shots