Searching for my first Red-winged Blackbird of the spring this morning, I was certainly not thinking about eagles. When an anomalous-looking raptor (i.e. not one of the many local Red-tailed Hawks I have seen) appeared in the sky circling high over a woodlot on the east side of Keele Street at 9:40, I pulled over to take a look in case it turned out to be a Northern Goshawk or Red-shouldered Hawk doing a display flight over local territory (like many birders over the past four years, I have become conditioned to default into atlassing mode). Even after I got my binoculars on the bird I was not thinking about eagles. From a distance, the bird appeared to be a dark buteo. It clearly showed a dark "vest" and a dark terminal band on its two-toned tail, so I began to think that it was a dark adult Rough-legged Hawk. As the bird slowly descended from the thermal it was riding and, in the process, flew closer to where I was standing, I began to re-evaluate this identification because the bird looked very large. Still, I had to remind myself, it is easy to misjudge a bird's size in the sky when there are no other birds to compare it to. Other anomalies presented themselves, however: for one thing, the contrast between the vest and tail were obvious in the clear sunlight, BUT it was not the bold black-and-white contrast that shows up on a Rough-legged Hawk. Also, there seemed to be a shiny part on the head, which at first puzzled me (insert "duh"). When the bird finally started to flap its way back up to a higher altitude, the wingbeats were slow and the wingtips bent upward, suggesting a larger, longer wing surface and a different "gestalt" altogether than a Rough-legged Hawk. It finally hit me as I watched it climb: I was looking at an adult Golden Eagle! The "shiny part on the head" was its golden nape and - yes - the bird was indeed very large! It flew with a slight dihedral when it was not flapping. I watched it slowly moving north-northwest over the Holland Marsh area until it was lost from view. This is only the fourth Golden Eagle I have observed in York Region in the past twenty years. I imagine there are more sightings than that in this area, but it is not a species that is observed often in this area. I still haven't found my first Red-winged Blackbird of the spring, even though they have been seen both north of me (in Keswick) and south of me (in Concorde). But I shouldn't complain. Of additional interest today was a displaying male Cooper's Hawk crossing Bathurst Avenue just south of Mulock Road in southwest Newmarket at 10:00 a.m.. The white, flared-up undertail coverts used in accipter displays puzzled me for years until several contributors to this website informed me that what I was seeing was not so much an odd field mark, but a behaviour linked to courtship. This flaring up of the undertail coverts can create a white-rumped appearance to some accipters, sometimes leading to misidentifications of these slim hawks as harriers. Ron Fleming, Newmarket DIRECTIONS: Although the eagle is likely many miles north of Newmarket by now, it was seen just north of Highway 9 on Keele Avenue, near where the Cardinal Golf Course maintenace road meets Keele. this is just a few kms east of Hwy. 400. The Cooper's Hawk mentioned above is, I suspect, one of a pair of local Cooper's that patrols the vicinity of Bathurst and Mulock in the southwest part of Newmarket. I am guessing, but I believe they nest in the woodlot along Old Bathurst, or in the much larger woods that is part of the Joker's Hill property on the west side of Bathurst. From [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tue Mar 15 13:51:07 2005 Return-Path: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Delivered-To: ontbirds@hwcn.org Received: from web31104.mail.mud.yahoo.com (web31104.mail.mud.yahoo.com [68.142.200.37]) by king.hwcn.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 85ED364359 for <ontbirds@hwcn.org>; Tue, 15 Mar 2005 13:51:06 -0500 (EST) Received: (qmail 8571 invoked by uid 60001); 15 Mar 2005 18:57:04 -0000 Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Received: from [70.48.205.97] by web31104.mail.mud.yahoo.com via HTTP; Tue, 15 Mar 2005 13:57:04 EST Date: Tue, 15 Mar 2005 13:57:04 -0500 (EST) From: Robert Carswell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: ontbirds@hwcn.org MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailman-Approved-At: Tue, 15 Mar 2005 14:30:29 -0500 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Content-Filtered-By: Mailman/MimeDel 2.1.1 Subject: [Ontbirds]Ashbridge's bay -- Lesser Scaup, Gulls. X-BeenThere: ontbirds@hwcn.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 15 Mar 2005 18:51:08 -0000
Today, Five Lesser Scaup (with Buffleheads and Long-tails) at Ashbridge's Bay. Also four Iceland and two Glaucous Gulls. Bob Carswell --------------------------------- Post your free ad now! Yahoo! Canada Personals From [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tue Mar 15 15:52:29 2005 Return-Path: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Delivered-To: ontbirds@hwcn.org Received: from taiga.com (mugwump.taiga.com [68.165.54.133]) by king.hwcn.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 249FD63AD6 for <ontbirds@hwcn.org>; Tue, 15 Mar 2005 15:52:29 -0500 (EST) Received: (qmail 32075 invoked by uid 525); 15 Mar 2005 20:57:55 -0000 Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: ontbirds@hwcn.org From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 15 Mar 2005 03:03:55 -0400 Subject: [Ontbirds]HSR: Beamer Conservation Area (11 Mar 2005) 68 Raptors X-BeenThere: ontbirds@hwcn.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 15 Mar 2005 20:52:29 -0000 Beamer Conservation Area, Grimsby, ON Ontario, Canada Daily Raptor Counts: Mar 11, 2005 ------------------------------------------------------------------- Species Day's Count Month Total Season Total ------------------ ----------- -------------- -------------- Black Vulture 0 0 0 Turkey Vulture 2 2 2 Osprey 0 0 0 Bald Eagle 0 0 2 Northern Harrier 0 0 0 Sharp-shinned Hawk 0 1 1 Cooper's Hawk 0 0 0 Northern Goshawk 0 0 0 Red-shouldered Hawk 0 0 0 Broad-winged Hawk 0 0 0 Red-tailed Hawk 66 89 120 Rough-legged Hawk 0 2 3 Golden Eagle 0 0 0 American Kestrel 0 0 0 Merlin 0 0 0 Peregrine Falcon 0 0 0 Unknown UA 0 0 0 Unknown UB 0 0 0 Unknown UF 0 0 0 Unknown UE 0 0 0 Unknown UR 0 0 0 Total: 68 94 128 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Observation start time: 08:00:00 Observation end time: 15:00:00 Total observation time: 5 hours Official Counter: Dave Copeland, Tom Reavley Observers: Weather: Observations: 2-TV came by very high and dissappeared over the eastern horizon ahead of snow showers. Tom Reavley counted from 8-10 a.m. shut down from 10-12p.m. Dave Copeland counted from 12-3p.m. No count from 10-12 due to heavy snow. ======================================================================== Report submitted by Bill Smith () Beamer Conservation Area, Grimsby, ON information may be found at: http://www.hwcn.org/link/niaghawk/