[TN-Bird] Northern Goshawk and KY Lake ramblings

From: <birder1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <tn-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 2010 18:16:06 -0600
1/5/2010
KY Lake areas of Henry Co

I made a run around my usual haunts today, with the highlights being a flyby 
juv. Northern Goshawk, and mind-numbing numbers of birds on KY Lake.

I was traveling up Hwy 79 this morning, about a mile south of the Antioch Rd 
turnoff, when I saw a large raptor approaching from the east just ahead of 
me, fairly low. My first instinct was "that Red-tail is really moving", or 
something along those lines. Immediately though it was apparent that no 
Red-tail could move with the speed and power of this bird in level flight, 
the flight action was wrong for Red-tail, and the tail was a bit long as 
well. I knew what it had to be, but didn't know if I would ever get a look 
at it. I stopped without wrecking, and get maybe 4 or 5 seconds of the bird 
thru my bins before it was over the road and gone.

This was a huge accipiter, no doubt a female. The barrel chest was 
prominent, and she flared once after crossing over before dropping behind 
some trees, showing me the pale bar across the coverts of the upperwing of 
this young bird. It was heavily marked below, but I never got a clear look 
at the head. The wings were long, broad at the body but tapered at the tips. 
Though obviously an accipiter after I got on it, at a glance I didn't even 
think Cooper's and that it must be a Red-tail, until the accipiter flight 
action hit me.

This is only my 3rd Goshawk in TN, and ironically all within a few miles of 
this spot. My father and I had an adult at Britton Ford, and another young 
bird just across the TN River in Stewart Co; both of these were back in the 
80's. It's been along time since I've had one in TN.

Most of the bays on KY Lake are frozen, including Britton Ford, and I saw 
absolutely none of the good birds today that have been around lately. There 
are easily 25,000+ Ring-billed Gulls in the area now, and  I only had a 
handful of Bonaparte's and a few Herrings sitting around on the ice. But, 
most of the birds aren't identifiable due to distance and heat waves, there 
is a GOOD bird in this mix somewhere. It was definitely a humbling 
experience to look at that many birds, and not be able to find a single 
unusual bird in the mix!

 Still lots of Goldeneyes, etc around, but most everything duckwise is right 
around the Pace Point area. There was a near solid mass of birds from Pace 
Point to Rocky Point. All of TN's expected ducks were in the area today, 
with the exception of Common Merganser which I looked hard for with no 
success. I had a total of 14 loons today, and no grebes other than 
Pied-billed and Horned.

Good Birding!!

Mike Todd
McKenzie, TN
birder1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
www.pbase.com/mctodd

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[TN-Bird] Northern Goshawk and KY Lake ramblings

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