It's not much of a stretch to assume that this is the same hawk as was in our back yard snacking on a pigeon during the memory card incident the other week. Once again we have failed to capture this bird in anything approaching its full splendor, because this is another cell phone photo shot through a window screen. I didn't even take this one; my wife did when I wasn't home, and my big camera wasn't even assembled at the time let alone accessible and ready to use.

I think this is a Cooper's hawk. There are some morphs of the Cooper's and the red tailed hawk that look awfully darn similar to me, and I'm certainly no hawkologist, but I base this on the size and the distinctive stripey butt.

It's also perched right on the gable directly outside our bedroom window, a sum total of about three feet away. This is normally a popular spot for a couple of the local starlings to sit and deliberately tease our cats. I suspect those two were nowhere in evidence just at this moment. Neither, as it happens, were the cats.

It's definitely spotted my wife and is giving her the good old hairy (or perhaps more appropriately feathery) eyeball. From that vantage point it'd also have a commanding view of both ours and our next door neighbor's feeders, but it'd also be hugely obvious to any partakers thereof so I'm not entirely certain that'd do it much good. Maybe it was just resting.