Predator on the premises

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I've been watching this impressive little raptor this spring as he has scouted my bird feeders for victuals. Two weeks ago he, or someone very much like him, slammed into my house---the siding, I believe, not a window---presumably while trying to pick a morsel off the two-prong pole near the back of my house. When I got to the back window to investigate, I saw some feathers swirling around and a hawk standing on the ground between the house and the feeder. He hopped to the top of the pole, then flew away, probably embarrassed with himself. Didn't get a good look at him then, though.

Then, a week ago, I came upon this guy with a freshly caught juvenile starling in its talons. He hopped over the fence for more privacy, but I went around and was able to observe him for several minutes at a distance as he picked at his still-living captive.

Today, interrupting myself from a writing task upstairs, I saw him perched atop the two-prong feeder near the ground-floor back windows. I observed him for probably 5 minutes total. Only after about 3 minutes, when he hopped first to the ground then farther away to the patio, did it occur to me to grab a camera. The best I could do was the Sony F717, a fairly high-end older point-and-shoot setup with a fixed Carl Zeiss (i.e., high-quality) zoom lens. I fumbled with it just to find a suitable auto configuration and managed to snap five or six frames while he perched on the arm of the heavy-duty captain's chair normally reserved for Rudy. I wasn't optimistic by the results, but was pleasantly surprised to see the large-scale snapshots. This is the best one, cropped at full resolution but compressed somewhat as a jpeg file. If you click the picture, you should see a decent enlargement with a critical detail for identification purposes.

I am officially identifying this creature as a juvenile or near-adult Sharp-Shinned Hawk. I'd been thinking he was probably a Cooper's hawk, but he is smaller than one I saw last year, and based on previous glimpses he appears to be more aggressive than Cooper's are reputed to be in chasing prey into foliage. The telltale clue is the yellow eye, which aren't found on Cooper's hawks. When comparing this picture with photos on Cornell's bird website, All About Birds, I was satisfied that his head configuration and feather patterns match those of the Sharp-Shinned Hawk.

Beer-D and I call this guy "Omar," in tribute to the oddly ethical "stick-up boy" from HBO's series The Wire. I can't actually verify his gender, but we choose to consider Omar to be a male unless the contrary is proved by an ornithologist.

My lesson learned for the day was to move my Nikon D80 from the closet to a hook by the back windows, set to fully automatic mode with a freshly charged battery and a zoom lens attached. Duh. (Slow learner.)