A couple weeks ago, I heard some squacking noise, and went into the back yard to hear what it was, and saw this hawk fly from a jacoranda in our backyard to into a Eucalyptus tree across the canyon.

Looked down around my feet and saw this allegator lizard trying to blend in.

Spent some more time hanging around the back yard waiting for the hawk to come back. I mostly ended up just taking pictures of hummingbirds...

... though I did get one more flyby, of a different hawk.

And then back to the humming biards, with a house finch and a Gulf Frittilary butterfly thrown in.

Skip ahead to today, when as I was heading out, I saw this hawk, probably another Cooper's hawk, perched on a branch about 10 feet from the house.

Later in the backyard, I again heard hawk-squacks. After looking around the trees, I spotted it on a fence about 100 feet away in the bottom of the canyon. And it looks like it was just finishing up a meal! Being in a canyon near dusk, the light is low, so the image is noisy.

A hooded oriole returns to the palm tree where it nests.