I took last Thursday off to prepare the house for weekend guests, but it was such a nice day, I found it hard to stay inside cleaning. So midmorning, I headed out for a little stroll. As I entered the woods, I saw a small bird fly into a brush pile. I raised my binoculars to see if I could follow it, when into my view from landed this Cooper's hawk, not 20 feet away from me.
I watched it for a while as it hopped around on the brush pile, no doubt searching for the same little bird I had tried to see. After some time, I shifted my weight and startled the bird off to a tree across a clearing (it's always the human that breaks the spell, isn't it). I ran back to the house, grabbed my camera and big lens and hurried back to the woods, where I found the bird still on its branch.
So engrossed was I in taking pictures, I didn't notice a chirping sound in the trees off to my right, but as I was looking down at the camera to see I got exposure right when a flutterment and a scufflement arose in the tree where the chirping had been and this yellow warbler fluttered into a tree ahead of me. That was two misses for the Cooper's, who I was sure was in the brush off to the right, but could not find for the life of me. It's so well-camoflaged with those gray and brown feathers that I never would have seen it the first time if it hadn't flown into my view.
On my way back to the house, I spied the first painted turtles that I've seen this season, basking as happily in the sun as I was (blissfully unaware that snow would come again this week!).