Day 43 - A Hawk in the Park

While David went to meetings this morning I walked the few blocks from the hotel to Piedmont Park which is in the heart of the Midtown district of Atlanta.  

It was very quiet and peaceful there this morning and one of the first sights when I arrived there was this very handsome bird...

He was sitting quite low on a branch, surveying the ground beneath.  He was not perturbed at all by my arrival, eventually moving to a slightly higher branch.

Having looked up the bird books and consulted the web, he seems to be a Cooper's or Broad-winged hawk.  He was quite large - standing at least 18" in height.

Having looked at the Piedmont Park website there are some 178 birds who are seen there through the year - from hawks to humming birds!

Walking around the lake there were great views of the Midtown skyscrapers across the water.

Before leaving the park I returned to see if the hawk was still there - he was - looking rather incongruous with the tall buildings behind him:

On my way back to the hotel I passed the house lived in by Margaret Mitchell, author of 'Gone with the Wind', which is now a museum dedicated to her life and writing.

We came home to Reston this evening where it was a good 10 degrees C cooler than Atlanta, snow and ice still on the ground and more forecast for tomorrow morning.