In the landscape.
Plants & places
Photographed beside leafless woodland and an open lawn near Mount Olivet, as recorded in the filename.
A sensible first response
Keep mature trees and observe hunting birds without approaching their perches or nests.
When to look
January observation. Several hawks remain in the region through winter.
Identification
A hawk with brown patterned upperwings and pale, marked underparts is visible in an oblique downstroke. Wing shape is distorted by the instant of flight, and neither the full tail nor the decisive underside wing pattern is clear enough to name a species.
Lookalikes & limits
Red-shouldered and red-tailed hawks are candidates; an accipiter cannot be dismissed from this single angle. A sequence showing a spread tail and both underwings would be more useful than enlarging blurred pixels.
In the garden
A glimpse of the larger predators connected to a garden and its surrounding habitat.