Subject: [Tweeters] Mystery hawk eating Snow Goose
Date: Nov 2 22:49:03 2009
From: notcalm at comcast.net - notcalm at comcast.net


Hello Richard,


Hard to know without a photo. Look at illustrations of third year Bald Eagle (likely) and Gyrfalcon (much less likely and doesn't match part of your description).


Regards,
Dan Reiff
Mercer Island

----- Original Message -----
From: "Richard Isherwood" <rjisherwood at gmail.com>
To: "Tweeters" <tweeters at u.washington.edu>
Sent: Monday, November 2, 2009 5:07:03 PM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific
Subject: [Tweeters] Mystery hawk eating Snow Goose

While watching the Snow Geese at the Skagit WMA Hayten Access area today my wife and I saw an unusual large raptor feeding on a dead goose, a hundred yards or so away from the big flock of live ones.It was considerably bigger than a Redtail, with a large bill and conspicuously long body and tail. It had white feathered legs, with small black spots, faint banding on its grey/brown tail, small whitish spotting on its wing coverts,and a dark eyestripe with whitish supercilium and cheek. An adult Bald Eagle chased it off the goose - the eagle was a bit bigger overall, but with a much shorter tail and heavier build. The mystery bird had little or no white on its upperparts in flight - we didn't see its underside. It headed toward the Skagit WMA HQ but we never saw it again.

It seems rather unlikely that this was a juvenile Ferruginous Hawk, so far north, west of the Cascades, and so late in the year, and my description is admittedly incomplete, but nothing else fits at all. I am happy to leave it as a mystery bird, but will be interested to hear if anyone else sees it.

Richard Isherwood
Port Townsend WA
Rjisherwood at gmail.com

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