Coming into our third spring in this house now, we’re still ticking off the occasional “yard bird” — birderspeak for a species detected for the first time in or from or over our little suburban postage stamp of a lot.
It’s always fun to see something new, but we’ve lived in so many places over so many years that our cumulative yard list, as opposed to our current yard list, is distressingly close to hitting a brick wall. That made doubly exciting this afternoon’s visitor, a bird I can’t recall ever having seen before from the comfort of my own window.
This adult Red-shouldered Hawk flew in to perch behind our back fence early this dim, rainy evening. Almost certainly a migrant (and almost certainly about to face a tough day or two as the temperatures fall and the ground freezes again), it surveyed the surroundings, a bit disdainfully, I thought, and then flashed off through the woods. I’d gladly offer it a Slate-colored Junco or a Red Fox Sparrow or two if it would like to stay around.
