I lugged the heavy 400mm lens around everywhere yesterday and today, insuring my not seeing a single interesting bird. But despite nightly below freezing temps I'd better keep it handy! We've even started camping in the yard at night again-especially since I noticed how well I sleep outside I moved the Cuddeback camera and caught the female Red Fox by surprise last night, but so far no results from sprinkling a cup of catnip around in front of it and spraying Obsession around (a tip from a jaguar research website, but maybe my bottle doesn't have real civet cat musk) 3-19-09, female Red Fox, 8:29 p.m. From Cuddeback trail camera photos-wildlife on Picazo Farm pond trail

They are beautiful in flight, aren't they?

I'm a juvvie, I ate too much, and I want my mommy !!! Seriously though, that is a fabulous pic. One of the best. I am a bit confused in that the bulge looks too low for the crop. Could it be the foot pulled up real high ?? Anyway, I live on the west coast, so it is always a treat to see the eastern variants of one of our most common hawks- send us more !!!

I suggest visiting Cornell Lab of Ornithology's "All about Birds" webpage. You can listen to the calls of hawks (since you got to hear this suspicious bird's call). That might be the key to IDing this bird. http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Red-tailed_Hawk/id The most educated answer I can give is that this is a dark morph red-tailed hawk. Its bill is just too broad to be a red-shouldered hawk (and I have not known red-shouldered hawks plumage to vary that considerably, as red-tailed hawks are known to do). Now the fact that you're in Florida is interesting since dark-morph red-tailed hawks are more known to occur in the Plains and western U.S.(see Harlan's hawks and western red-tailed hawks for images). So, unless this is a falconry bird that escaped, this is probably a rare bird to find in Florida. Would love to hear the opinion of a birding expert. This post was edited by TMFF on Mon, Jan 28, 13 at 22:31