Beautiful shots. They made me feel like I'm at the beach. I especially loved the lower photo of the plovers taking flight. Thanks so much for posting those.

Thanks everyone, We're always filled with anticipation as nesting season approaches, and we love to share our birds :) Kris- Yes we have hawks quite often here. We don't always see them, but we know when our birds do. So far we've been pretty lucky that they usually take a House Sparrow or Starlling rather than our beloved native songbirds. But we did lose one Titmouse to a Cooper last year. Not sure there's much to do about them... they are majestic creatures which share the habitat with all the other birds... and they must eat. We do always fear for our favorites of course, but we love the hawks too, and try to photograph them when we can. Here are a couple of shots of them... Cooper's Hawk: Redtail: Thanks again, and happy birding all. Kenn

Great photos, thanks for sharing. After a week of rain, we had a beautiful weekend with bright sunny days in the 70's here in North Texas. Went to the State Fair in Dallas and watched my alma mater Texas beat the Sooners in the Cotton Bowl. Doesn't get much better than that.

Sorry. Posted this in Raptor forum instead of Bird Watching forum by mistake. Was looking for Raptor ID information in your forum then searching web for raptor "flight photos" and posted without switching back to Birdwatching where I'd started. Trying to ID raptors who frequent yard and surrounding woods/reservoir but don't have camera to capture images to study for ID assistance. Got within 10 feet of one that landed on white pine branch over dusk ground feeders the other night. Thanks for understanding posting error.