falome Loc: Tampabay, Florida

My bird in my yard. Lots more to come.

How lucky can we get in life when a wild osprey decides to move into your life?

A Kodak moment.

legion3 Loc: Deer Park Long Island

are you sure that's an osprey?

nimbushopper Loc: Tampa, FL

That's a hawk!

Bwarn Loc: Northern Kentucky

Doesn't have the dark stripe over te eyes, maybe a young Cooper's hawk.

falome Loc: Tampabay, Florida

No doubt in my mind. They are huge and eat other birds. I live across from a wildlife preserve where we cannot approach them. I think it is alright if they approach us. In Florida, land cannot be developed within 500 yards of a nesting Osprey.

falome Loc: Tampabay, Florida

Tell me more. It is still beautiful.

falome Loc: Tampabay, Florida

You could be right. It is still fantastic to look at.

Bwarn Loc: Northern Kentucky

Birds of prey are very beautiful. Hawks can be huge and fool you into thinking there something their not. That bird is a beauty and what a great opportunity to have one in your space. We have a lot of redtail hawks around here but they never come close enough.

falome Loc: Tampabay, Florida

Thank you. This is something that came into my life at the right time. I broke my arm two months ago and have not picked up my cams since. So I grabbed my wifes Kodak for these shots.

Linda From Maine Loc: Yakima, Washington

It is a hawk, but that doesn't change the delight you can experience from having it visit you nor from sharing these cool images with us. Hope you're on the mend and will be out and about soon.

tramsey Loc: Texas

I think it is a sharp shinned hawk. Here's what Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology has to say about the identification:


Size & Shape
Sharp-shinned Hawks are small, long-tailed hawks with short, rounded wings. They have small heads that in flight do not always project beyond the “wrists” of the wings. The tail tends to be square-tipped and may show a notch at the tip. Females are considerably larger than males.

Color Pattern
Adults are slaty blue-gray above, with narrow, horizontal red-orange bars on the breast. Immature birds are mostly brown, with coarse vertical streaks on white underparts. Adults and young have broad dark bands across their long tails.

Behavior
Sharp-shinned Hawks are agile fliers that speed through dense woods to surprise their prey, typically songbirds. They do not stoop on prey from high overhead. They may also pounce from low perches. When flying across open areas they have a distinctive flap-and-glide flight style.

Habitat
Sharp-shinned Hawks breed in deep forests. During migration, look for them in open habitats or high in the sky, migrating along ridgelines. During the nonbreeding season they hunt small birds and mammals along forest edges and sometimes at backyard bird feeders, causing a wave of high-pitched alarm calls among the gathered songbirds.

Awfully exciting to photograph a raptor be it an osprey or hawk, still gets the heart pumping :D

Great shots, post some more of your bird :thumbup: :thumbup:

falome Loc: Tampabay, Florida

thank you for your kind thoughts. grab every image as you see it.

falome Loc: Tampabay, Florida

when it comes into our life ~ take a pic.

cthahn

Moving to the left when taking the picture would have made a big difference showing the whole bird

falome Loc: Tampabay, Florida

Thank you. I will make sure I tell the bird to do that.