Avian Encounters

The wind has shaken loose a blizzard of leaves the last day or two. Here's the golden carpet I found in the plaza in front of the Good Library yesterday morning.

It was also a day with some fascinating bird sightings. Coming back across campus, I saw this hawk, with its breakfast of gray squirrel. There have been Cooper's hawks nesting on campus the past few years, but this fellow doesn't match the picture in my Peterson Field Guide. Any bird lovers out there who can tell what it is?

Then in the afternoon, this cardinal caught my eye as it fluffed itself up, and splashed enthusiastically in the bird bath. Its red head and breast glowed, but its wings were more the color of a female cardinal. (Hard to tell in these photos, because the wings are in motion, scattering the water.)

And in a different sort of encounter, Jep Hostetler sent me a video of this bird sighting out his window, up in Collegeville, Minnesota.