Date: Mon, 25 Mar 2002 09:20:51 -0500 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Bonnie Ott Subject: Ho Co (accipiter help??) MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Working in my atlas block yesterday I tallied a number of new arrivals (for me) - NRWS, OSPREY, COMMON LOON. Other highlights were 5 GREEN WING TEAL, 1 BLUE WING, 90 AMERICAN PIPITS, 5 MEADOWLARKS. 2 groups of GREAT BLUES 5 in one flock and 7 in the other. We had a "problem" accipiter that had 5 experienced birders confused. What threw us off was the flight pattern of this very large accipter- for the entire 30-40 seconds we observed this bird it maintained a continuous flap, but very exaggerated and similar to a rock dove's courtship flap. The wings were brought up to a very high point above the body and brought down with deep slow strokes. The bird never went into a glide from horizon to horizon. At one point a Coopers flew near with the more typical flight style for comparison. (they were also fairly close and completely ignored each other). Some of us leaned toward goshawk (we did take plenty of notes on field marks) but would they ever do a courtship flight (which is what I believe this bird was doing) in migration? I have only found a few references to courtship flight in accipiters. Any additional info would be appreciated. Bonnie Ott (field trip chair) Ellicott city, Howard County Maryland bonnie1163@comcast.net ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================