Whoa...

[stoutfellow]

Although the St. Louis area is a good place for birding, I'm no more than a casual practitioner; I don't go looking for birds, but I do like to keep my eyes open. I've seen a good variety of birds - three kinds of heron, three kinds of blackbird, wrens, swifts, plover, mockingbirds... One thing I haven't seen a lot of, though, is raptors. (Once, while biking, I saw a peregrine - beautiful animal! - perched on a street sign; utterly unruffled, it watched me pedal past at a distance of no more than ten feet.) This afternoon, though, on the way to work, I glanced up and saw an unmistakeable silhouette, the thick body and broad wings of one of the larger hawks. (The sight immediately pulled to mind an illustration from Peterson's, accompanied by the words "genus Buteo". What that image was doing in memory, I don't know.) I couldn't tell what species it was, and couldn't wait for long to find out. In the few seconds that I watched, though, it banked slightly and I caught a flash of red from the upper surface of its tail. When I get home, I'll pull out my guides and see if I can get a firmer ID. With or without ID, though, the sight was thrilling. That something so heavy-looking should be able to fly so effortlessly seems almost unfair...

Comments

[mmegaera.livejournal.com]

Wow. Red-tailed hawk? Sharp-shinned hawk?

They are glorious. I think the first time I had that "that's too big to be able to fly!" feeling, I was in Alaska amongst the bald eagles (they're like seagulls up there).

[gryphons-lair.livejournal.com]

Sounds like a red-tailed hawk to me. The tail color is moderately distinctive, and they're a lot bigger than sharp-shinned hawks.

And yeah, there's something special about a raptor on the wing. Grace in motion.

[stoutfellow.livejournal.com]

Yeah, a quick page through Peterson seems to confirm that it was a red-tail. I'd be less sure if it had been early morning (when the ambient light has a reddish cast), but this was close to noon.

[hornedhopper.livejournal.com]

Remember a year ago when a red-tailed hawk had a snack of one of the Remainders and perched on the fence looking down at me? I could have sworn if I had been smaller, he would have gone for it.

Amazing, fearless, and majestic.

We just watched Winged Migration, btw. It's *so* worth the watch, although it would have been nice to have had more verbal content rather than background songs. The bird photography was amazing! How they can fly for hundreds or thousands of miles twice a year...