Raptor alert!

[telophase]

Seen for a short time on the brick fence behind our house from the bathroom window. He was also in shadow, so it was hard to tell if colors were brown or grey, for instance.

Dark back, very leggy, barred tail - dark tail with horizontal dark bars on it. Breast white and brown - looked like brown, er not stripes, but vertical brown feathers or streaky-type marks (I should learn this bird terminology!). Beak looked kind of like it had a dark tip on it.

It was a kind of hawk-like, falcon-like thing. And now that I've gotten all I remember written down, off to the intertubes to search for possible identifications!

ETA: Breast like the ones the merlins are showing, but a tail more like a Cooper's hawk. I'm leaning towards a juvenile Cooper's for now.

Comments

[kore]

I saw a Cooper's hawk once out the window of our five-story apartment building, RIGHT by the living room. It was unforgettable.

[telophase]

Cool!

[longshot14.livejournal.com]

I really dig that, as soon as you get a house, you start blogging local higher-order ecology ;)

[telophase.livejournal.com]

You have to realize, my dad was an ecologist, we lived in the Serengeti for two years while he did his PhD research, and wildlife watching's always been a part of my life. I'm just now in a position where I can watch wildlife OTHER than grackles and pigeons. :D (Our rental house had no windows on the front, and all the other windows were cloudy enough or blocked by trees and vines, so you couldn't see out of them easily.)