Question regarding Goshawks....
Would there be juvenile plumaged Goshawks anywhere this time of year? I KNOW it's not likely here, in any plumage, and so am skeptical of what we saw... but does a juvenile plumaged bird make it impossible?
Joanne
Joanne Howl, DVM
<jovet...>
West River, MD
-----Original Message-----
From: jovet <jovet...>
To: mdbirding <mdbirding...>
Sent: Fri, Apr 5, 2013 8:53 pm
Subject: [MDBirding] Yellow throated warbler, Sora, Goshawk??? Wootens Landing
Wonderful evening walk at Wooten's tonight with Jon Ranson.
First bird we saw may be the bird of the night - it sure looked good for a potential juvenile Northern Goshawk. We watched it for about 5 minutes or more, sitting in a tree and saw it lift off. I just can't make it any bird I've seen before - it looked like an almost osprey-sized accipiter. Here's our entry in ebird.
"Appeared to be a large accipiter sitting at a top of a tree abt 100 feet away. Back of of bird was towards us most of the time. Tail black and brown banded (on back) and it seemed too long to be a buteo tail. Back brownish and speckled whitish. Appeared to be a white striped supercilium; it was clearly light but not bright white. Didn't see a lot of the chest, but it appeared striped. Looked much too large to be a Cooper's Hawk. Face almost, but not quite, seemed to have a vague owl-like look, but not like a Harrier (absolutely not a Harrier). When the bird lifted, the wings were light with, with striping across the entire wing. There were no terminal "finger tips" as in a Red-Shoulder. This bird looked very, very much like illustrations of a juvenile Northern Goshawk. But, I have never seen one. Bird appeared almost the size of an osprey at the distance. Sat with tail straight down."
Searching the web when we got home, we found this picture, which sure looks like what we saw:
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://purpleopurple.com/life-science/birds/northern-goshawk1.jpg&imgrefurl=http://purpleopurple.com/life-science/birds/northern-goshawk.html&h=373&w=468&sz=36&tbnid=DlzNClMOACKReM:&tbnh=84&tbnw=105&zoom=1&usg=__uHkK9LjBxaAWc1BSbopECtRi9bA=&docid=eDu1A4gHD1hLZM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=tGZfUdm9Jqnq0gGihAE&sqi=2&ved=0CGIQ9QEwEA&dur=1664
When it flew away, we walked for over an hour more, but saw no sign of it at all. We'd sure love someone else to find it.... and no, no photos, no scope. Seen only with binoculars.
The best bird we could "count" was a fabulous YELLOW-THROATED WARBLER. Jon first saw it in a maple, leaping up to catch bugs out of a swarm. We watched it for a long time, but in the light and distance, we could only make a guess. The bugs came our way - and the bird did, too. It stopped in a nearby pine, where it hopped a bit, then seemed to get sleepy and nestled into a bunch of pine needles near the top of the tree. You could only see it's bill! A breeze came up and rustled its bough, and the bird started hopping around the tree. We got excellent, fabulous looks - and were able to watch it for at least 5 minutes (a warbler record, I think!).
Heard a SORA in the marsh as well. Also a nice small flock of BLUE-WINGED TEAL and GREEN-WINGED TEAL in the pond. Very photogenic (if one had a camera). Some were running around dabbling mud in the pond edges.
Good birding,
Joanne Howl, Jon Ranson
West River, MD
<jovet...>
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