@Socialprogressive
Looking like it's going to swallow the tube snake whole.

This Red Shoulder Hawk was on my neighbors deck railing having a little snake tartare for lunch recently.

@Socialprogressive His look in the second photo says, "What are you looking at? Nothing to see here!"

This Red Shoulder Hawk was on my neighbors deck railing having a little snake tartare for lunch recently.

@Socialprogressive Great pix of the Red-shouldered Hawk SP! Beautiful. That was a nice California Kingsnake as well, was being the key word. The hawk is in an interesting plumage, a tweenage bird. The flight feathers on the wing and tail, banded white on black are those of an adult bird. However adults have fine red horizontal barring on the underparts, the old prior name was Red-bellied Hawk prior to the 5th AOU in 1955. The vertical streaking on the underparts is indicative of an immature bird. So your bird is between one and two years old, and has not yet acquired its first full adult plumage.

GREAT pix!

This Red Shoulder Hawk was on my neighbors deck railing having a little snake tartare for lunch recently.

@boriscleto that's some wild sheet mon! I think I am having a flashback!

Super bored...

Up to 466 on Flickr now, another 80 or so I haven't uploaded yet.

https://flic.kr/s/aHsmvF4Chx

@Daenerys Great Bald Eagle pic d! Great to hear about what you are seeing too. Those House Sparrows will yank an Eastern Bluebird or Red-headed Woodpecker out of their nest to steal the hole. Both are too mild-mannered to fight back against the aggressive buggers. The Martins that nest in central Texas are departing the late summer roosts, one in Austin, another in Houston, where they show up on radar at dusk (as a constricting donut), tens to hundreds of thousands, later this month. Our Cuckoos depart the area as soon as the young is out of the nest, a month ago. We may snag a migrant or two over fall, but the local breeders are gone already. Female cowbirds is what the pellet gun does here...

Here is an eagle that visited our hay field the other day; my mom was out cutting some hay when she spotted him and texted me; I grabbed my camera and got a few shots before he flew off.

We've also had a family of purple martins visiting. I don't know where their nest is; I've never had a martin house or gourds up, since I don't know where I would put them where they wouldn't be in the way of something else. I got some photos of them, but haven't finished uploading them yet. And we have a cardinal hanging around again; finally, after ~34 years at this farm (off and on)--he's been coming to my seed tray. Gotta get some photos of him too. Also I heard a yellow-billed cuckoo calling in our trees one day; I couldn't see it but I did get a recording. I'll have to upload it to YouTube to share it here I think.

The house sparrows took over my feeders a while ago though, and killed one of the chickadees during the last snow storm we had this spring, so I got a pellet gun to deal with them, and a decent scope. I've gotten three of them so far--two yesterday and one today. I've been using our truck as a blind; I think I've reached a new level of redneck. The males are the more aggressive ones I hear. At least when it gets cold and the leaves drop it will be easier to spot them in the trees.

@dystopian I love the hummingbird photos of the neck color changes. Amazing to me.

Great pic BR! I wish some of that cold was in central Texas, we are melting.

We had one of our first long-distance fall migrants show up July 31, a Rufous Hummingbird.
Nice adult male, the iridescent gorget feathers on the throat usually appear dark, or in good light bright red, an orangish-red. However at some angles of light, since it is iridescence those feathers may reflect gold or green.

from the side the throat will just appear dark

but it can light up with the correct angle of light

this is an older pic that shows the usual color you see in good light

back to our current visitor...

note how the slight change in angle can totally change the color you see

I have been too busy to be around much recently... but grab some quick re-assurance on the fly here and there... Thanks all!

@mimi

And sometimes the winds blow her down completely, but our handyman always makes sure she stands up properly.
Sending you all a belated Good Night. The sun is out over here, splendid weather and a nice cool breeze.
PS:it seems you can embed directly from Flickr the images into C99p here? Haven't done so before, or may be I just forgot. How do you do that? Ok, may be next time I will figure it out.