Hi Claire, Found this old thread; thought I'd rehash the past. Ha! I can't help myself. I'm a hawk watcher. Your opening photos were undoubtedly an accipiter. The grey/black banded tail is the dead giveaway. The length of it is more pronounced than that of any buteo. The wing tips of a Red-shouldered Hawk come just about to the tip of the tail when perched. A Red-shouldered would never have grey/black as its tail colors and wouldn't have such a distinction between tip of wing to tip of tail. Also, notice how widely spaced the banding on the tail is; a RSHA juvenile would have narrowly-spaced light brown/dark brown banding on a much shorter, tapered tail. Juv RSHA would have heart-shaped streaking on chest down to the belly. Since you have familiarity with the small size of Sharpies and believed this to be too large, I'd day you had a juvenile Cooper's hawk here. Also, Blue Jays frequently imitate Red-shouldereds to freak out feeding birds and lay claim to what they leave behind. Tricksy birds, they are. Perhaps you've heard them do that. But you may have heard a RSHA in your woods as they seem to cling to the east coast year-round rather than fully migrate out. This post was edited by TMFF on Thu, Feb 7, 13 at 17:31

Thanks so much! I've been discouraged about my new camera choice after looking at some early Canon EOS 7D bird photo samples..soft images, over exposed, noisy, EEEeew. I was upset, but DB comforted me by pointing out that the first poster had used a cheap Sigma lenses and lightened the image, and the second one had used a doubler. Then I found a professional photographer's website with photos taken using a 7D that were exquisite, but he could have been taking the photos from up close and using a pricey lens. The Canon EOS 7D reviews are full of glowing praise, so I don't know what to think. I checked a chatline and the consensus there was that it was the best thing for the price since sliced bread. Everyone had either bought one or was about to, and that once you spend 3 days reading the thick instruction manual and adjusting all the settings, you'll have increasingly better results with practice, and they seemed to all be delighted with it. Well, I have to have some sort of camera improvement; as it is, I've spent alot of time stalking ducks at the fish hatchery-crawling through weeds, lying in the grass to get as close as possible-yet the Canon 40D camera couldn't handle shadows or water well and most of the photos were barely usable even for ID purposes. Photos taken with the 7D-look great until you zoom in. http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1019&message=33518247 Camera discussion group, reviewing their Canon EOS 7D experiences http://photo.net/canon-eos-digital-camera-forum/00V9r0

They are beautiful in flight, aren't they?

I have a pair of red tailed hawks that have been using the same nest for years. they are spectacular birds. I feel gifted being able to enjoy their majesty so often[ me squirrels not so much !]