Red Tail Hawk

The lovely 'peridot' colored cushions acquired at vast expense to replace the ones that were ruined in the fire, have been piled in a heap in the middle of the porch for a week.  Although the porch has a roof, it leaks unpredictably in a couple of places, one of which is right over one of the new cushions. I was afraid this would happen. One of the reasons the cushions were so expensive was because they are made of an outdoor fabric that is stain proof, color fast and supposedly bombproof. It is a pain to cover them, and they don't look so great piled on top of the table, so it looks like OilMan has a new item on his never shortening list...fix leak in porch roof....

Although it is supposed to grow colder and rainier next week, today is beautiful so I decided to put the cushions back in place. While I was doing that, all the little birds flying around the feeders next to the porch vanished, and into the oak tree high above them flew this magnificent Red Tail Hawk. She sat on her branch, undisturbed by me attempting to get a decent shot of her from far below, then called to her mate, who answered from a distance, spread all four feet of her wings and sailed off.  

Red Tails seem to be particularly adapted to living in urban areas. I love the book Red Tails in Love  by Marie Winn, the true story of a group of bird watchers who meet in Central Park in New York every morning and discover a pair of Red Tails nesting on somebody's balcony.