I FINALLY got some shots of the HARRIER HAWK at rest!

I was SO EXCITED yesterday!!! I saw one of our local harrier hawks fly overhead so I ran up the hill behind the house after it...

When I got to the ridge, there he was -- perched in a tree on the next rise! He was still quite a distance away but, thanks to the 10X optical zoom of my Canon SX100si, I was able to take photos that show him well enough to say for SURE that he is, indeed, a "harrier" of what they call the "light race". Harriers come in two distinct types which are both technically "harriers" but, the "dark race" is dark brown and black with touches of "ruddy" (reddish) feathers and the other is mostly white and light grey with touches of black.

The hill that separated us has incredibly STEEP and rugged terrain so, at first I took a bunch of photos of the harrier from the driveway. He stayed on the same perch in the same tree long enough, however, that I thought I'd give climbing the hill a try to get closer to him...

The following are "photo-collages" that I did by cropping some of the photos and "pasting" them together to show 4 shots of the harrier on one page:

As I crept up the hill -- closer to the tree where the harrier was perched -- I realized that there was ANOTHER harrier hawk in the tree next to him. A female!

About that time, I noticed about 3 large crows (or possibly ravens) approach from the northwest... With them was ANOTHER harrier!! Here's a shot that I got of the male harrier in the tree and 2 of the crows in the distance:

All 4 birds (the new harrier and 3 crows) circled the trees where the other 2 harriers were, several times, until I really couldn't figure out just WHO was chasing WHO and several times the crows got very close to the male harrier in the tree. This next photo shows the male harrier and you can see one of the crows just to the right of him:

The "new" harrier provided me with the best shot I've ever been able to get of a harrier in flight, though... Check it out:

I was about halfway up my climb up the steep hill when the 3 crows -- with the "new harrier" with them -- took off towards the southwest and I guess the male and female that I'd been photographing decided to with them because they took off right behind them...

The whole thing gives me hope that, someday, I'll be able to get some even CLOSER shots of these beautiful, beautiful raptor birds...

I've got my fingers crossed... ;o)

luv,

jean