Shutter birds

After an exhausting day of scaling mountains of paperwork, I arrived home, opened the back door to let my husky, Annie, inside when I heard squawking. There in the wilds of my backyard on the wall just above the Jacuzzi was a beautiful hawk with its kill. The bird had its wings spread around the dove, hiding it from others who may try to steal it. I took lots of photos from our “tent,” a.k.a. tract home.

-- Carol Vyn

Irvine

*

The bird is certainly a Cooper’s hawk rather than the similar sharp-shinned hawk, if nothing else because it dwarfs the mourning dove it has captured. It’s an adult bird (note the reddish barring below), and the combination of very large size and gray, not black, crown suggests it is a female.

--Kimball L. Garrett

Ornithology collections manager, Natural History Museum

of Los Angeles County

*

It is obviously a wonderful photograph of an adult Cooper’s hawk mantling, or protecting, its prey, a mourning dove. The head angle on the dove is perfect while the hawk’s head is turned a bit far away from the camera, resulting in somewhat uneven lighting on the Coop’s face. Wish that I had been there!

--Arthur Morris

Wildlife photographer and author of “The Art of Bird Photography”