Subject: [Tweeters] Red-tailed Hawk Olympia "hot-spot"
Date: Apr 5 13:39:52 2008
From: Douglas Canning - dcanning at zhonka.net


Any of you who regularly drive the US Highway 101 corridor in Olympia
between Interstate 5 and the Black Lake Boulevard exit may want to keep
one eye on the highway lighting standards along the highway. At least
two distinct Red-tailed Hawk can be frequently seen here, perched on
the horizontal arm of those lighting standards, albeit rarely at the
same time. I see them most often near the Cooper Point Road
overcrossing. I make a sighting on maybe a quarter of the times I drive
through here.

Today, while driving west approaching the Cooper Point Road
overcrossing, I saw two Red-tails engaged in an aerial display right
over the highway, flying at each other and swooping up facing each
other a couple of times, then level off and fly in circles away from
each other.

Since the first of the year I've now made 14 sightings along this
length of the highway. The grassy highway edges here make good habitat
for small mammal prey; I've yet to learn of their night roost locale.

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Douglas Canning
Olympia, Washington
dcanning at zhonka.net
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