I discovered why the Red-shouldered Hawks are flying around my house so much. The nest in the huge Oak tree I mentioned in post #2,664 is not a squirrel nest as I thought; it belongs to the mating pair of Hawks! I've heard them screeching from that direction, and stupidly wondered why I couldn't see them. I heard one of them calling out shrilly when I was in our yard a bit earlier, and looked up just as it folded its wings and flew low over me and the house at a high rate of speed, only to backwing at the seemingly last second and land gracefully in the nest. Almost as quickly, it left the nest and went back in the direction from which it came, landing high in a tall Poplar tree a few hundred feet away, where it perched with its mate just long enough for me to get a good look. Of course I didn't have a decent camera with me at the time.
Later I heard one calling out from behind the house again, and looked up to see it in a tree near the nest. They come off of a branch in a hurry. I've yet to photograph one just as it lands or launches. But now that I know they are literally in my back yard, I'll be carrying my camera every time I walk out of the house.