The whitish border to the sort of wavy tail bands is another good field
mark. They have really cool tails.
Good spotting!
Carole Hallett
Portland
On Sun, Nov 24, 2019, 13:07 Bob Archer <rabican1@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
The fact that it landed on top of a snag, seemed the size of a Red-tailed
(Goshawk can be longer but much less beefier), has wings that barely reach
half way down the tail, white supercilium, and heavy streaks pretty much
nails it as a Goshawk.
Bob Archer
PDX
On Sun, Nov 24, 2019 at 12:40 PM Rebecca Hartman <rhartman@xxxxxxx> wrote:
Dear Obolers,
Yesterday I travelled to the HK burn area in Morrow Co., having been
lured by an intriguing e-Bird list from November 18th, where the observers
encountered a gathering of 21 Black-backed Woodpeckers and 3 American
Three-toeds. That list is here: https://ebird.org/checklist/S61573270.
Alas, I failed to locate a single woodpecker species. Anywhere. It was a
decidedly un-birdy day for me.
However, I did stumble across what is perhaps a Northern Goshawk? And I
was hoping folks would be willing to share their thoughts. I have two poor
pics attached. The lighter of the two is the best; I included the second
because it captures the shape of the bird, which to me seemed rather
long-necked with a broad head.
Initially, the bird was perched atop a medium-sized snag, near the road
on the edge of a small clearing in the forest. It was backlit, but seemed
nearly the size of a Red-Tail. My first two observations (without bins)
were its distinct whitish supercilium and its very heavily, thick-streaked
underparts. A somewhat pale nape, but the heavy streaking ran pretty much
the entire length of the bird, and was a striking field mark to me, as it
was quite different than anything I'm familiar with. Because the bird was
facing me, I could not see its tail. Of course it took flight as I reached
for my bins.
It was difficult to observe anything about its flight, as it moved low,
behind the tree tops. My vague impression was stiff wing beats like a
Cooper's Hawk, but slower, but my experience with those is quite limited.
It flew a few hundred feet to the pictured perch. What leads me to think it
could be a juvenile Goshawk are the uneven tail-bands, which you can see
pretty well in the better pic, and the distance between the primaries and
the tail tip, along with that supercilium and thickly streaked belly. And
that I *want *it to be a Goshawk, truth be told. So I thought I'd see
what more experienced birders have to say.
Thanks and good birding,
Rebecca
--
Dr. Rebecca Hartman
Associate Professor of History
History Department
Eastern Oregon University
http://eou.edu/history
541-962-3599
*The universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to
grow sharper.”*― Eden Phillpotts
