Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Hope you're all having a good day with family. If you want the weekly news, 42 observations added in the past week puts the project's total count to 868. We are now literally fifty more reports away from breaking our 2020 record and that was my goal all along, to surpass our all-time low. And if we continue strong, we'll break the 2019 record.

Yesterday was really exciting for me, so the Observation of the Week goes to myself. While driving the road that hugs the Union/Baker county border, a Red-tailed Hawk take off from the field, flew past us, then looped back until it landed directly above. When I saw it in flight, I saw the bright white uppertail coverts and the person I was birding with saw the thin patagium and white underwings. As I leaned dangerously out my car window and taking photos of the bird above me, I saw the white throat, unmarked flanks and a heavily retained molt. This hawk is not a local. I think it's a give or take case, a more lightly marked abieticola or a more heavily marked borealis. Either way a vagrant that shouldn't be here, but maybe not so much. Maybe I'm just the luckiest hawk watcher out there, or these vagrants are more common than reported as this'll represent my fifth or sixth abieticola/borealis Red-tailed. You can see my photos here:

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/101861375

While you all eat a delicious turkey today, we are approaching the last week of November. Raptors are definitely coming in in strong numbers. Besides my vagrant Red-tailed, I also got two Harlan's (my fourth of the season), a Sharp-shinned, Rough-legged Hawk, a bunch of kestrels and my favorite spot, a Northern Pygmy-Owl. It is a perfect time for raptor watching, especially since the first snow fell this week. Good luck to you and have a good day!

Posted on November 25, 2021 04:53 PM by birdwhisperer birdwhisperer

Comments

No comments yet.

Add a Comment

Sign In or Sign Up to add comments