Friday, October 29, 2010

Mt. Watatic 10/29

I spent a few hours hawkwatching on Mt. Watatic this morning and the first bird was an unidentified eagle off the Wapack Ridge and then it disappear below the horizon. It seemed to have more fluid wing beats than a Bald Eagle when it flapped.....otherwise it gave away little as to its true indentity. But, after 10 mintues the bird never resurfaced and it appeared this one, perhaps a Golden Eagle had "escaped", log entery 1 "UE". Another 5 or 10 minutes passed and I spotted raven not too far out over the main summitt....and beside it....was a Golden (a juvenile)! It soared briefly with the raven and quickly "set its wings" to make a long glide to the southwest.
A few "record" shots, poor ones at that.

its golden nape is visible here and a bit of its "two-toned" tail.
Its white tail with strongly demarcated dark terminal band shows a little better in this shot.

I am not sure if this was the "lost bird" from a few mintues before...but its doubtfull I'll loose any sleep over it.

Rain showers moving in from the west.

Total migrate raptor for the moring:
Osprey 1
Sharp-shinned Hawk 3
Cooper's Hawk 1
Red-shouldered hawk 3
Red-tailed Hawk 4
Peregrine Falcon 1
Golden Eagle 1

1 comment:

grammie g said...

Hi Tom ...good count you got with some rarities to boot!!