February 7, 2012
The hawks have been rebuilding the nest again. I noticed they started back in late January

February 26, 2012
The hawks have been building up the nest and laying claim to their territory.
This morning a third hawk showed up in the area and it stirred up the other two.

March 21, 2012
It seems like about two weeks ago the hawks started sitting on eggs. Today I just received a 2X teleconverter that I can use to magnify the image from my 70-200mm Nikon lens. It just so happens I got the rig out in time to catch the hawks snacking on what looked like a big worm. (I thought it was a small snake until I processed the image.)

April 18, 2012
One of the hawks has been staying by or in the nest for the last month -- presumably sitting on eggs. This nesting hawk pair has been very quiet. I haven't seen them hunt near the nest so far. By this time I can usually get a good close-up og one in my back yard, but they have different habits. I suspect it's not the same pair we had last year. The other hawk occasionally comes by with snacks.

In today's photo mom was not sitting as far down in the nest. This time last year the chicks had hatched. She just looked at me as I was taking photos of her from across the street. I'm not sure if she was just taking a break from sitting on eggs or they had already hatched.

April 22, 2012
I haven't seen a hawk in the nest over the last three days. The two previous year's increased activity just around mid April suggested hatchlings in the nest. I hope this doesn't mean the eggs didn't make it.

While I was in my driveway a hawk made a half-hearted dive towards me so I went inside to get my camera. I don't know if it was one of the nesting pair. When I came outside it was still in a diving mood and made another pass. I caught one shot. Then it circled and flew off. A bit later I saw two hawks circling high overhead and they were joined by two others. There were four hawks circling high over the neighborhood. None approached the nest.

April 23, 2012
Good news! This evening after a jog my son and I noticed a hawk perched on the side of the nest. It was holding what looked like a rat's tail. It was motionless. So I set up the camera and took some photos. Then my son spotted something white moving around. Sure enough it was a chick! I managed to get a couple of shots with it just peeking over the edge of the nest. I waited a good bit more and got another shot of its fluffy body as it climbed around in the nest.

May 1, 2012
I spotted two chicks in the nest this evening.

May 11, 2012
The two chicks are doing great. One of the parents actually made a low pass at me from behind while I stood in my yard with camera on tripod pointed up at the nest. I only heard the swoosh and the smack of what I think was the diving hawk hitting a leaf or two in my tree. It was perched behind my house keeping an eye out on the nest. This parent (Mom I think) doesn't stay in the nesting tree as much as last year's mom. This nest is also much more quite than last year's nest.

May 17, 2012
A couple of days ago I saw one of the chicks in the other nearby pine tree. So I guess it was fledged. This morning one of the adults was trying to get the fledglings to fly around. Unfortunately it didn't have anything tasty to entice the young hawks.

May 23, 2012
The fledglings are doing great. I got some nice close-ups today during the morning and afternoon. They were hanging around the yard. I even got a sequence of shots where a curious squirrel decided to check out one of the fledglings in our backyard tree.

June 1, 2012
The two fledglings continue to visit the back yard. Momma is still tending to the fledglings. I got a photo of the three of them in one of the tall water oaks down by the creek.

I can photograph them playing or hunting around in the grass through my back window. The quality of the photos is significantly degraded since I'm shooting through double pane windows. This is motivation to keep the window spotless, but every little irregularity in the four window surfaces is amplyfied by the large aperture and long focal length of the camera's lens. It also degrades AF reliability and of course I can't use flash. (To the unaided eye the image through the glass looks crisp and without distortion.) I keep my heavy tripod by the back window which helps. When I go outside I can get much clearer photos even though I have to hand hold the 400mm lens. However, the hawks will go on-guard -- if not fly off -- so I can't capture them at play. But I can get some nice "posed" shots. I can't tell one from the other, but it seeems as though one is more skittish about my approach than the other. One will often fly off for the taller trees down by the creek when it first spots me, while the other will *sometimes* let me get in close enough to almost fill the frame of my D300 at 400mm.

June 16, 2012
The fledglings are still around, although I haven't seen mamma in several days.