At around 10am today Heydi Lopes and I spotted a dark morph Rough-legged Hawk hunting over the grasslands at Floyd Bennett Field. The bird stuck around for a bit and, while watching it perched in a tree at the back of the north-western field, spotted a second rough-legged heading across the grassland. This one was a light morph individual. When we were leaving Floyd Bennett at around 12:30pm we relocated the light morph perched in a tree along the runway that borders the North 40 area. It's interesting to note that a third bird (also light) was reported around that time hunting over White Island in Gerritsen Creek. I guess it's fair to say that the roughies have arrived. In all, we tallied seven species of raptor at Floyd Bennett today:
Northern Harrier ("Gray Ghost") Cooper's Hawk Red-shouldered Hawk Red-tailed Hawk Rough-legged Hawk kestrel Merlin Good birding, Rob -- NYSbirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/nysbirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NYSBirds-L 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/NYSB.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --