John Pelletier forwarded this photo from his backyard in Newtonville. Whatever that big bird is, it caused quite a stir with the rest of the local bird population around his house. Take a look at the closeup below and tell us what kind of bird we’ve got here.
Looks like a red tailed hawk to me.
That’s what it looks like. Maybe a bit immature
Yes, that’s a red-tailed hawk. We see them all the time in Waban: a little bit of wildness right here in the suburbs.
Tell those N’ville mice to keep their heads down.
I actually thought it was a big owl at first but zoomed in on one of the pictures I took and observed the distinct raptor beak. I figured it was a hawk of some kind. The birds sure were not happy, in the photo above you can see a grumpy robin off to the left, and in some others I had maybe 3-4 other birds hanging out around the hawk chirping away. She (or he) didn’t seem to mind and eventually flew off before dusk.
My friend Carol says:
Hawks kill doves too. Saw this happen in my backyard.
A red tail is frequently seen in the woods behind us, and we’ve seen it take a squirrel and a chipmunk.