The Annual Return of Our Neighborhood Red-Tailed Hawks

Ever have the feeling that you are being watched?

This is what I saw when I looked up from the computer for much of March and April. Just about every morning there was a red-tailed hawk sitting there in the top of the fir tree in the field behind our house.

Here it is sitting on its second-favorite perch. The hawk is facing left in the middle of the picture.

The nest that hawks use year after year is located in a large cottonwood tree in the large wetland that begins just southwest of our yard. Here are pictures taken from our back deck -

The arrow that I added to this picture is to point out that you can see the hawk sitting in the nest.

This is a view from the east. I couldn't believe how huge the nest looks from this direction.

Every year starting in January we see the hawks fly by carrying twigs/branches to the nest. On March 1 I actually saw the pair, uh, mate in that large fir tree. I took a couple of pictures, but they are both very poor-quality shots. For what it's worth, here they are....

Right now I can look over at the nest through binoculars and see the head of a hawk sitting in there. It's getting harder to see the nest from here now that the trees are leafing out. It should become pretty obvious when the eggs hatch, though, because the hawks become pretty noisy. All day long. I'll post updates.