Stan,

It appears that your Imm. Goshawk hasn't strayed too far from your yard 
since you spotted it over the weekend. This afternoon while getting off of 
work at BWI at around 3:15, I found (presumably) your bird situated on a 
light post along the entrance road to the airport adjacent to the run-up 
block for runway 15 Right. For those that aren't familiar with the lay-out, 
as you drive into the airport on the main road, the runway on your right 
that parallels the roadway is Runway 15 Right. When the airport is taking 
off to the east, you'll see the departures lined up here for take-off. 
Anyway, about 1000 feet or so down from the approach end there is a holding 
area that is part of one of the taxiways leading to this runway, and along 
the edge near the fence are some light poles (British Airways knocked one of 
these down a few years back when some lines were incorrectly marked for the 
pilots to follow to get situated in the holding area). I digress again. As I 
merged onto the exit road that is opposite this, I observed a large hawk 
being bombarded by a crow while trying to sit atop the fixture. There is 
sometimes a Red-tail that hangs out in this area and at first that's what I 
thought it was going to be. Then I observed that the bird was much larger 
than the crow, with dark streaking from head to the belly with dark banding 
on the underside of the long tail.

Interestingly, when I was at work this morning, the supervisor on duty over 
the weekend told me about this "big hawk" that soared in and landed on the 
rail of the catwalk of the tower yesterday. The bird then glided down and 
landed on top of the roof of terminal "C" for a time. (terminal C holds the 
gates for Delta, American and Northwest). His description was right on for 
this bird, so it may be holding in the area if it doesn't get creamed by an 
aircraft while it hunts the fields and forests here. I'll follow-up if more 
observations are made in the next week and beyond.

Ed Boyd
Westminster, MD
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Stan Arnold" <>


> Hi Folks,
>
> Fairly late in the afternoon, Elaine and I took a walk to the end of the
> driveway, impressed by the thousand or so grackles feeding in various 
> yards
> across the main thoroughfare.  When we returned to the yard, I noticed a
> large hawk flying to the east.  It was big and I thought it was our
> Red-tail, but it looked rather dark; I was looking at it edge-on, and 
> really
> couldn't see any detail.  It didn't fly like the Red-tail, either:  no 
> bank,
> cruise, circle, hover, circle, bank, cruise... It flew in a rather direct
> line, turning little and allowing little more than a profile view.
> Fortuitously, however, it did make a turn, and came right toward us.  The
> big bird flew right over our yard, revealing heavy streaking from throat 
> to
> feet, pale undertail coverts, and delicate banding on the tail--a juvenile
> NORTHERN GOSHAWK, yard bird #117, and yet another county bird.

> Stan Arnold
> Glen Burnie
> 
>