Thank you for your input and this is why I'm asking for help. This is not a small bird. It's the largest hawk-like bird I've seen other than eagles at a distance or vultures. It was the size that first drew my attention to it. On our property, we always get Cooper's hawks. They make nearly a daily hunt at our feeder area so am very familiar with their sizing and this particular bird is easily half again as large as the largest Cooper's I've seen, perhaps twice that size. It is ALWAYS drawn to the pond, totally ignores the birds at the feeders, and they do not appear afraid of it, and instead of flushing from their cover (vines on old trees and large junipers around the feeders) just go about their business. Yes, it's the same bird each time. I'm not seeing one bird take the fish and photographing the other. It was eating the fish when we got the photo below. We are under a very heavy snow cover and rural, with lots of ponds in the area but since our rivers are frozen over, it's a given the ponds are too. Water and fish would be scarce and lots of animals are drawn to our pond since the heavy spring flow keeps it thawed almost perpetually. I could appreciate a fishing bird showing up here under these circumstances when it wouldn't normally frequent our property. The feathers on the back of this bird are dark, with only blotches of white when its back is to you, there is no pattern you can discern other than the faintest suggestion of a barred tail and it's is a muddy brown/grey over dark grey. I'm not looking for a 'rare' bird, but accuracy since I submit birding data and I'd sure like to get this one correct, or I'd just have to log it as unknown.

BN, It's a rare day that I disagree with you on any ID, but this juvenile hawk has too many uniform upper chest markings to be a Red-tailed. This is a juvenile Red-shouldered Hawk. The chest/belly pattern fits that species perfectly. I'd point out the barred primaries/secondaries on the folded wings, but, alas, the tree trunk blocks that view. I am certain the barring would be there. I am certain it's a Red-shouldered. BN is correct, though, in distinguishing this Buteo from an Accipiter (Cooper's/Sharp-shinned/Goshawk). The wing tips come too close to the tail tip. This post was edited by TMFF on Thu, Dec 12, 13 at 17:22

His tail was pretty long, but I dont know much on him overall at all for ID, the going call was Coop (so I wrote below) but I personally haven't a clue here's a few more pics of him that I printed today for my neighbor (who calls me Elly Mae Crampet lol) he didn't believe me on the hawks that come and sit in our yards. He comes often to the yard, daily, sometimes twice a day :O He did have 2 RTH trying to steal his dinner last week, now THAT was a show! He also sounds like a crying baby, he will on occassion sit in a low tree in my back yard and whine (so weird!) -Michelle

A balsam fir, i see, with needles 1 1/2 inches. Yah I see where your coming from Luc with the streaking on the chest, but it still is thin enough to say Coopers to me. Also the presence of those distinctive white tail "rim" also points to coopers hawk. The fact that she says it was easily as large as a crow clinches it in my mind that its a coopers hawk. But disagreement is good in catching mistakes so thanks. Nathan