A Sunday in the backyard - Skywatch Friday

A hawk was sitting on my neighbor's sailboat in the morning.

Blue jay screaming at the hawk.

Blue-gray gnatcatcher sitting in the grapefruit tree. It's the first time I've seen a blue-gray in our backyard. I think he was watching the blue jay at the top of the tree.

Later, as the clouds moved in I noticed the downy woodpecker on the same (almost dead) grapefruit tree.

Another downy picture.

The resident osprey showed up later with a fish.

Creepy clouds moving in right before the sun went down.

Our grapefruit tree is going to have to go soon. It's about 75% dead. It covers around 25% of our backyard and has been there since the house was build back in the 60's. It's been great for shading part of the house and I'm going to miss it (except for picking up rotten grapefruit for half the year). I don't know what I want to replace it with. Something that's already half grown so we can get some shade fairly soon. We don't want another fruit tree since it's just too much work to pick up the fruit. Our soil is sandy and the tree would sit in between our house and the seawall. It would get lots of sun. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

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