I set out yesterday morning with the goal of finding some hawks in the far
north delta, although I knew it was going to be tough finding birds in the
howling wind. I was able to locate the dark morph Harlan's that has become
a regular. I then went to fish lake road, and observed some odd behavior.
No hawks were seen soaring, but upon inspecting the drying pond beds I
found a pair of red-tailed hawks walking around in the shallow water in
what appeared to be foraging behavior. The real treat awaited me at the
Senatobia creek wetland. I pulled off to inspect a large soaring bird, and
was delighted to see it was a FOS osprey. After scanning the rest of the
lake I noticed a bald eagle perched on a snag across the lake. While trying
to take a few photos of the eagle I noticed there was another eagle sitting
on the nest in the next tree over. At this point I was smiling ear to ear
and just watching the eagle nest. After a while I turned my attention back
to the osprey that was now hunting. I was fortunate enough to see the
osprey catch a fish, and that is when the moment became surreal. The eagle
on the nest raced across the wetland to harass the osprey that had just
caught the fish. Out of the woods came another osprey. I observed this pair
of osprey and a bald eagle have an acrobatic showdown for about 5 minutes
before they got so high I couldn't make them out anymore. Over all it was
an amazing series of events to observe so close to civilization. below is a
checklist contacting a few terrible photos I attempted to take during all
of the excitement.
http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S35083495
Good birding,
Jeff Hill
