My wife spotted this hawk, which we believe is a Cooper's Hawk, sitting in a tree approximately 40 feet from the bird feeder. There were numerous birds at the feeder oblivious to the hawk's presence. I am guessing the hawk landed during a loll in the small birds' eating and they didn't see it when they returned. If a hawk comes into the area normally the birds will high tail it out of there or become like little statues until the coast is clear. I used my 2x extender to bring it in closer.
@ckwiseman@beryl - Since it was sitting in a tree there was a lot of background clutter from branches. So I took them out in PhotoShop and added a background in made using two different backgrounds and reducing the opacity of both to create this one. I wanted to keep it close to white and wintry looking since we just got blessed with snow again.
@shepherdmanswife - No it didn't surprisingly. It was facing away from the feeder looking towards a small strip of trees and beyond that a corn field. Every once in a while it would look back like this towards the feeder. After sitting there for 15 - 30 minutes it left. It spared the birds at the feeder. However, sometime later my wife happened to look out the window on the other side of the house and saw that it had caught something. A car went down the road and scared it off with its catch.
