Hawk on tree branch

[RickP66]

Caught this fella dining on a snake on a tree branch behind my house.

[SmartWombat]

Very nice, 1 & 2 are my favourites, 2 slightly preferred.
But they are wonderful shots.

70-200 or the 400mm ?
How far are they cropped from full frame?

[RickP66]

Shots were hand held with a 400mm f5.6L aperture priority f5.6. I cropped (IIRC) the first two about 25% just for good composition (as I couldn't very well get closer to the bird).

[Knight]

Superb Captures Rick.

Well done

[bobainsworth]

Nice shots! I like the first one the best

[paulnj]

The 1ST and 2ND are the best, as they show more field marks for this florida subspecies of redshouldered hawk(I am sure you already know that though)

[kornphlake]

Paulnj, you seem to be the bird guru, we've been seeing a hawk around our house that we haven't been able to identify, my wife loosing her field guide hasn't helped out much either...

It looks alot like the red shoulder hawks we saw in early spring only a bit smaller and its chest is white with grey spots, the upper half of the chest is spotted unlike the one pictured here, and the lower half is spotted rather than stripped. We're east of San Diego, Ca, could our friendly hawk be a juvenile, or a less common california subspecies of red shoulder hawk?

I broke the lens on my Pentax camera and all I've got is a cheap-o digital camera so getting a picture may prove to be difficult, you seem to be pretty good at guessing bird species though so I figured I'd give you a shot.

[paulnj]

WHITE chest with GREY SPOTS??? Are you sure? I honestly know every hawk in north america and can't ID one from that discription. I would say you had a cooper's hawk mostlikely since you say it's smaller than a REDSHOULDERED HAWK(are you sure you don't mean redTAILED hawk)

Their are 3 SUBSPECIES of redshouldered hawks, eastern, florida and CALIFORNIA.. The california ones are WAY darker than the florida ones and have TONS of brick red coloring