Help! What kind of bird is this? Anyone know?

[Grace]

This bird comes to my yard now and again, and is very timid. He (she?) usually flies away before I even have a chance to grab my camera. Today I was faster and got a quick shot before he flew off. It's not the best shot - I just didn't have time to get anything closer or set my camera to a higher pixel setting (I tried zooming in on the picture but the resolution was too low for it to be clear). So hopefully someone will recognize this bird and tell me what he/she is! It's much bigger than a sparrow and even bigger than my cardinals. I have no clue what it could be.....

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid197/p995b3b3c0ab90fb1c262a02cec85b8ed/f1066764.jpg

[sneezles]

I'm really not much of a birder and have no real idea how big your bird is but it looks like a kestrel to me, just from the coloring and shape of the body. But I'm probably very wrong... :o

[sneezles]

Does this look anything like it:

American Kestrel (http://www.open.org/~raptor/kestrel.jpg)

Sorry but the pciture won't post here...

[bensdad]

I like to think I know quiet a bit about birds, but your picture just doesn't show enough for me to venture a guess :( Sorry

[mbrogier]

Grace, I think we have kestrels around Chicago. I see a lot of birds of prey in fields, and that bird looks very familiar to me. They're not very social, so I wouldn't expect it to actually come into your yard.

[ginny177]

It is in the hawk family (note the shape of the tail). Could be a Kestrel, but the shot isn't close enough to see details of striping etc.so it's hard to pinoint which raptor it might be.
Good luck with your identity quest.
BTW, raptors are predatory birds (its prey are the smaller birds) so it may be scoping out any nearby feeders for a victim.

[Kathy B]

BTW, raptors are predatory birds (its prey are the smaller birds) so it may be scoping out any nearby feeders for a victim.

Well, everybody has to eat, don't they? ;)

I think Sneezle's kestrel is a very good guess.

[Grace]

Eek!!! They want to eat my birds??!! I have a bird feeder in the window that they are indeed scoping out (it's obvious that's what they're looking at), although in my ignorance I figured they were eyeballing all the good bird seed in the feeder! Not the actual other birds!! While I appreciate the cycle of nature, I hope I don't actually see them catching another bird.... (but they're welcome to the yucky mice that come to my feeder!!)

Thanks all for the help. I'm am absolutely loving the wildlife that I have in my very city backyard. I never paid that much attention and it's giving me a LOT of pleasure to watch all these beautiful creatures!

I will try to take another picture when I see them again (I've seen two at a time once, so I know there are at least two).