Top Photo: Unidentified large brown bird. You’re walking along the path. The low mid-morning sun is bright and shining directly into your face. A large bird flies by and catches your eye. It lands high up in a tree some fifty or so yards away. Branches restrict your view and the bird is facing away from you. When you first spotted the bird you thought it was a hawk. But which hawk? red-shouldered (the most common hawk in the area)?Read more
Posts tagged: #Red-tailed Hawk
Red Tails Overhead
Top Photo: Immature plumaged red-tailed hawk soars over museum. If you’ve visited the museum in the past several months you’re probably aware of the red-shouldered hawks that have nested here this season, like just about every other year since I’ve been here. Their loud vocalizations as they soar above the outdoor loop make them quite noticeable to even casual observers. You may not have known, however, about the red-tailed hawks that nested alongside the parking lot on the south sideRead more
Hawks Identified
The answers to the hawk identifications from last week’s post “A Four Hawk Week” are as follows. Top Photo: Cooper’s hawk. The rest of the hawks are: Hawk 1 – Sharp-shinned hawk (immature) What you can see is the rounded wings, longish squared-off tail and small head. What you can’t see is the rapid flap, flap, flap and glide as the bird flies along. Quick movements usually means small bird. This is a small hawk. Some of the smallest malesRead more
Taken For Granted
(Above: red-shouldered hawk wipes bill on railing after eating red swamp crayfish, on post to right of hawk) I recently spent a few days at a coastal Virginia hawk watch witnessing hundreds of hawks passing overhead on their migratory treks south. Osprey, sharp-shinned and Cooper’s hawks, harriers, bald eagles, merlins and kestrels made up the bulk of the cast. And, of course, there were lesser birds as palm warblers, parula, kinglets, flickers, as well as various butterflies, like monarch, buckeye,Read more
Red Shoulders and Red Tails
As I walked past the last shrub in the line of hazel alders and into the clearing I was a bit startled by a red-shouldered hawk no more than four feet distance from me, at eye level. The hawk seemed just as surprised as I as we stared wide-eyed at one another on the north edge of the wetland. The hawk’s stare briefly intensified, then relaxed. I slowly backed up so as not to force the hawk to flight. ItRead more
December?
Top Photo: What December should look like. It’s December, for sure, but it’s been an unusually warm December, so far. We should enjoy it while we can. And, that’s just what Animal Keeper Autumn did the other day as she and Misha, our red-tailed hawk, went for a walk around the Museum’s outdoor campus. If you like turtles, this is a good time to see them. In fact, you may see some of our “light-sleeping” yellow-bellied sliders out and about onRead more
Bluebird Update 4.14.15
It was only one week ago when the nest box at the Cow Pasture contained a mere two pine needles. It now has a complete nest and one bluebird egg behind its wooden walls. It took these bluebirds a while to get started, but they wasted little time since the last time I checked this box. I suspect I’ll find more eggs in the nest box next week. Last week the nest box next to the Bungee Jump (Take Off)Read more
Bluebird Update 7/8/14
One nest has fledged all their bluebirds while two nests are still in the early stages, one contains eggs, the other four fresh nestlings. The Cow Pasture bluebirds have flown their coop. Upon inspection, the nest box was empty except for hundreds, no thousands, of very tiny spiders. At first sight I thought the minute creatures were mites, maybe even ticks. I thought that perhaps their parents had fed off the birds in the nest, laid eggs and now theRead more
Red, White, and Blue, sort of
The red I heard the call of the hawk before I saw it. As I turned, the bird came in to a Loblolly Pine over the Train Station here at the Museum. It was carrying something of weight and bulk in its talons though I couldn’t make out what it was. The bird began to call out, keee-eeeer, keee-eeeer, keee-eeeer! I could hear another bird calling as well, a whiny and slower keeeear…keeear…keear. As I looked up the other hawkRead more