Adam and I were up on the 6th Street bridge shooting pictures of boats on the Ohio River (and a litter deposit on the bridge that Adam discovered; more on that later). As we were walking down off the bridge to our car, I heard a crow cawing. I looked over to the Bob Evans restaurant there in downtown Huntington WV when I saw a crow chasing a small hawk. The hawk landed on this billboard.
The billboard advertises King's Daughters Medical Center in Ashland KY. It's aimed at traffic leaving Huntington and crossing the Ohio River to Ohio. The hawk appears to be sitting (on the billboard) where the Ohio River bridges connect Ashland with Lawrence County OH.
I'm nowhere near a hawk expert. From the white bands on the tail, I'm guessing this is a red shouldered hawk. If so, I've seen this hawk or another of this variety in the East End of Huntington this year.
Or it could be a broad-shouldered hawk like the one that hangs around the bird feeder at the home of my former coworker and fellow terminated newspaper man Dave Peyton. I'll let the experts decide the bird's identity.
This photo is about as good of resolution as I dared to try for. I had to crop the image down quite a bit to get this much in. If I ever get a decent job again. I'm going to have to buy a 500-mm lens so I can get good pics of hawks and buzzards and wild turkeys.
