WTF Bird Encounter

I've decided I have a weird inner clock. Or maybe it's just that it's tuned to the year and not the day. In any case, this time of year I find myself springing (yes, I don't exaggerate) from bed as early as five A.M. looking for something to do. As I've discovered this is an excellent time to make ambient sound recordings since traffic is light and few others are about I've been visiting favorite haunts in order to capture the aural essence of summer to tide me over in the less sunny months to come.

This morning I headed out in the green thunderstorm light to Frautschi Point in the Lakeshore Nature Preserve only to find this on the street.



I presume it was a hawk of some sort and just assumed it's a Red-Tailed. Popping on the hazard lights and grabbing the camera I managed to take a few decidedly poor pictures of the scene. Sorry, but conditions were not ideal. Anyway, just adjacent to that stretch of road were two of these guys.



As I was sitting there watching, the crane decided to visit the raptor!



Curious? Warning? Dumb? I can only guess. In any case, the encounter apparently agitated both participants enough that one of them left.



On viewing this photo later, I had second thoughts about my Red-tailed Hawk identification/assumption. Hence, the WTF title of this post, meaning "Who's That Flying?" That's what it's always meant, right?