Beautiful, Ann! I wonder if there's a setting on your camera to compensate for back-lighting? My good camera has one - doesn't make the pictures perfect but they're better especially when you have that bright, milky looking sky in the background. The lens gathers so much light in telephoto mode.
My hawks have learned not to "pose" for me. When they land around my back yard, they are eyeing my songbirds at the feeder much too hungrily. I get out my toy pellet gun and shoot at them. I've only hit one once, and he just fluffed and flew away so it doesn't hurt them. But I like that I can scare them away. They never go far because my neighbor has trees that they like to nest in.
Didn't get a picture but I had a pretty little woodpecker today that looked like a downy, but it had a bright red blaze on the back of it's head. Would this be a male downy? Or another? It was very small, too. Just a little bit bigger than the sparrows.
