Subject: hawks aloft
Date: Sep 28 12:25:24 2003
From: Netta Smith - nettasmith at comcast.net


Hello, tweets.

I sat out in my back yard this morning for an hour to enjoy the weather and
to see if any hawks might be moving over. There was little wind, but there
should have been decent thermals forming. I saw nothing in the sky but a
couple of Glaucous-winged Gulls until about 11:00, when an immature female
Sharp-shinned Hawk rose up above me, presumably having been perched in the
trees nearby. It gained altitude and sailed off to the west.

Just 20 minutes later, the same thing happened again, but this time it was
an immature male Cooper's Hawk that rose up and finally flapped off to the
south. How cool to see the two species right In a row!

During my migration watch (or was it a Little Sit?), I also saw a flock of 4
robins heading south high up and a flock of 3 Band-tailed Pigeons doing the
same. No other bird movement, and nothing persistent in my yard but
Black-capped Chickadees constantly taking sunflower seeds to cache. My
hour-long vigil tallied 13 species, which I'm sure is a record count for 28
September 2003 in my yard.

Dennis Paulson
--
Netta Smith and Dennis Paulson
1724 NE 98 St.
Seattle, WA 98115