Marley

My daughter took these pictures of the leucistic hawk nesting nearby. A few years ago, we named her Marley, after the ghost in A Christmas Carol. She’s a magnificent, powerful hawk.

One day last summer as I stood at the kitchen window, she swooped into view and landed at the base of the bird feeder, then took off and disappeared into the woods. It all happened in about 3 seconds; I didn’t see what she got, but I’m guessing a chipmunk. She left a gray squirrel mid-munch on the ground a few feet away, looking as dazed and disbelieving as I felt. If I hadn’t been standing there at that moment, eyes trained on that spot, I’d have missed it.

My daughter’s taking some great pictures. She’s inspiring me to learn more about how to use all the features on my Panasonic Lumix DMC FZ-300. Her camera is a Canon SX70 hs.

So far we’ve seen just one chick. In this picture, just a bit of its fluff shows at Marley’s feet.