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Re: any guesses on this bird at Turkey Point today?

From:

Taylor McLean

Reply-To:

Taylor McLean

Date:

Thu, 12 Oct 2006 21:45:50 -0400

Last week, Cape May had a Missippi Kite at Higbie Beach and at the
observation deck. I do not know what was the age of the bird.

   Taylor McLean
   

-----Original Message-----
From: Maryland Birds & Birding [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of Patricia Valdata
Sent: Thursday, October 12, 2006 7:44 PM
To: 
Subject: [MDOSPREY] any guesses on this bird at Turkey Point today?


It was a slow  raptor day at Turkey Point, though the long meadow was 
chock full
of White-throated Sparrows and Kinglets, and I saw two Junco tails 
disappear into the
mile-a-minute tangle near the bench.

What really got my attention was a bird that flew out from the trees 
on the north east
side of the Hawk Watch meadow. Because it was near the sun I never got a
good look at field marks, but I did get a glimpse of what looked like a 
terminal band on the tail,
and overall the bird seemed quite dark. The front half of the 
underside of the wings
looked darker than the flight feathers.

My first thought was a smallish buteo, but then I thought I saw short 
first primaries, but then
I saw the bird was molting (isn't it a tad late for that?) and 
missing other primaries. A couple
of wing feathers were sticking up at an odd angle--I guess on their 
way to dropping off--and
in general it looked pretty scraggly. However, its flight was sort of 
accipter-like as it twisted
in mid-air as though it were hunting for insects, and at one point I 
could clearly see its feet
down as it swooped and flapped among the dragonflies. Then it did a 
fast glide back
over the trees. Its wings seemed quite fluid as it flapped, not 
stiff, and it was very maneuverable.

When it reappeared about an hour later in a glide, its wings seemed 
quite falcon-like, with a straight
trailing edge and a point to the tips. Again it did a quick pass over 
the field, a couple of turns,
and then it let the wind carry it back over the trees.

It was clearly not an accipiter--there was nothing long about the 
tail--and it was also not a falcon, not
any that I've seen, anyway, with their purposeful straight flight. 
This bird was all over the place.
It also really didn't look like a buteo on the second look. There was 
no breadth to those wings.

Could it possibly have been a juvenile Mississippi Kite, at Turkey 
Point in mid-October??


--Pat

Pat Valdata, Elkton, MD | 
"The natural function of the wing is to soar upwards
and carry that which is heavy up to the place where dwells the race of gods.
More than any other thing that pertains to the body it partakes of the
nature of the divine." --Plato