This past weekend I went down to Bedford County for more hawk watching at the Allegheny Front. Saturday was a decent day with 103 raptors migrating past, however the cloudless sky made if quite difficult to spot hawks and I am sure we missed a few. Sunday was the complete opposite as far as cloud covers goes, we had between 95 and 100% cloud cover all day long and were able to spot 211 raptors migrating past. Blue Jays are really pushing through right now, with over 200 seen flying past the hawk watch over the two days. Most of the raptors that flew by were Broad-winged Hawks but also lots of Sharp-shinned Hawks and Cooper's Hawks were passing by. Other species included Osprey, Northern Harriers, Red-tailed Hawks, American Kestrels, and Merlin.
The highlight of Saturday was this adult female Merlin that flew in close to attack the owl decoy.
On Sunday, we watched this juvenile Cooper's Hawk attack a juvenile Broad-winged Hawk right over top of us at the hawk watch.
Juvenile Broad-winged Hawk, heavily streaked.
Juvenile Red-tailed Hawk
Kettle of 5 Broad-winged Hawks
It was a great weekend filled with my favorite activity in the world, hawk watching. For information about the latest count data at the Allegheny Front Hawk Watch, visit this
link to HawkCount.org.
so when i see that cooper's hawk, purely by shape - i'd say sharp-shinned because of the T vs t thing. But obviously by size, it's too big to be a ss. so is that how you could tell from the photo - just by size?
ReplyDeletechris