Pic(k) of the Week: A Sunday kind of hawk

Click on the image for a larger, hi-res version (on Flickr).

A red-shouldered hawk (Buteo lineatus) perched in a tree: a wonderful find for a winter's Sunday stroll.

When I first noticed this handsome fellow, he was sitting in a marsh, far from my position and partially hidden from sight. I found a fallen bough to sit on and waited, hoping he might move closer for a 'cleaner' shot. Forty-five minutes later, he obliged.

And, for a moment, I felt like a 'birder.'

Decatur Legacy Park
City of Decatur, Georgia, USA.
11 January 2026.

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Barry Harris: Ornithology
Album: Breakin' It Up (Label: Argo, 1959)

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Pic(k) of the Week: Morning bird in winter forsythia

And smale foweles maken melodye

A peripatetic ruby-crowned kinglet (Corthylio calendula) momentarily stops to sing in a forsythia bush, its red crown shining in winter morning light.

Ruby-crowned kinglets typically inhabit northern North America. I spotted this male, however, much farther south (in DeKalb County, Georgia, USA), where it was probably preparing for its imminent migration back north.

26 February 2025.

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Ralph Vaughan-Williams: The Lark Ascending

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Pic(k) of the Week: Goose going Postal

A Canada goose (Branta canadensis) gracefully winters on Postal Pond, in Decatur Legacy Park, Decatur, Georgia, USA, on 4 March 2023.

I've always called this elegant waterfowl, a Canadian Goose. I've only just discovered its 'correct' appellation. Despite its name, the Canada goose's year-round habitat extends south into Georgia¹, 2,300 miles (3,700 kilometers) from Canada.

Decatur, by the way, is a small city (population, 24,928) in —and the county seat of— DeKalb County, Georgia, part of the Atlanta metropolitan area.² Legacy Park is a 77-acre oasis within it.

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