My office, and Grace’s schoolroom, is the former sleep porch perched upstairs in the back dormer of our 1919 Bungalow.  When we look out our windows, we are surrounded by trees.  In the summer, it is a cool green leafy tree house.  In the fall, we watch a squirrel cirque du soleil performance, as they run, play and leap with total abandon in search of pecans from my neighbor’s pecan tree, often sporting nuts hanging from their mouths or clustered in their cheeks!  In the winter, it is a study of bare branches on two sides, and evergreens on the other with the swooping of bird wings more evident with the sun lower in the sky.  The sun sparkling on choppy water reflects off of our schoolroom walls where the light refracts just so. 

Grace has finished her Apologia Zoology Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day curriculum, but we are trying to remain vigilant of bird sightings to retain knowledge.  The other day, we caught the quick shadow of a

hawks wings and quickly picked up the binoculars.  The Hawk is from Phylum Chordata, Class Aves, Order Falconiformes, Family Accipitridae, Genus Accipiter.  As far as the Species, we think a juvenile Coopers Hawk. Cooper’s Hawks and Sharp-shinned Hawks will hunt near bird feeders and song birds are their favorite lunch…Ralph caught this scene with the camera. 

For more about Hawks in Virginia visit: http://www.dgif.virginia.gov/wildlife/birds/raptors/