Half Dome Hawk

Paddled over to the Post Office...by way of going first back to the Creek...then over to the Creek Bridge...out around to the Deer House...Chapel Bridge... through Cook's...passed the Woodpecker Tree....from the Artists Grove to Sleepy Owl Woods....and arrived at the Village...with the two Brazilians with a new camera (same as mine almost..xs...rather than xsi) in tow!!....they wanted to see where to take pics!!...so after Breakfast I invited them to come along...they'd already been to Cook's and thereabouts...the Creek was new...but I think seeing things from my perspective helped them out!...and too bad they weren't along when I left them to return....back at the Oak Arch Branch Over Half Dome, I glimpsed Hawk on the wing over the Birdfoot Intersection of the Roads....Hawk didn't fly to the often photographed Oak Branch...but to another one just on the other side of the Path!!....this was real luck!...I crossed the Road and tried to get the sun to my back...and Half Dome in the background...was using the new camera...and was almost 'there' when Hawk flew off back across the Road into Sleepy Owl Woods...another blurry flight pic of the Woodpecker Tree Redshoulder!....I followed into the Woods....but lost Hawk...started back to the Oak Grove, work time nearing...and to avoid some tourists ahead, went to the left and the Roadside Path....and glimpsed a branch across the Road that looked Hawkish...and Hawk's head turned...what I was seeing was just a dark silhouetted extension of the the tree branch...so I was able to take some more pics...and get pretty close..after shushing some approaching tourists...who were delighted when Hawk flew over them towards Fern Ledge...couldn't track the flight, so I was disappointed a little...but happy to see Hawk is about...in the one pic, the sunlight picks up the color of Hawk's red shoulder....I strongly suspect this Hawk is Coop...whose feathers have gone from the light orange of last year, to the dark reddish orange I'm seeing now...hard to tell the color in the flight pic..couldn't get around to Coop's front...I've seen Coop in just this area now five times...pics from four...and a sixth sighting over at Lower Falls...and some of the glimpses around Cook's have probably been Coop too...Cook's Meadow is Coop's territory!!.....kinda cloudy cool...the moon full tonight and lighting up the low puff clouds over the Rims...no photo has ever come close to what the Valley looks like on a cold Winter night with the Moon and Broken Storm Clouds!!...or Tuolumne on a Summer night for that matter!!