Hi folks,

My schedule prevented an earlier chase of this bird today, but I opted to go down in the late afternoon and try anyway, and with some luck, it was successful. Thanks to previous finders' eBird reports, I got to the specific area easily. I turned on Buckley Road from Jackson Highway and checked the hedgerow on the south side of the runway, per earlier reports. No dice. I then drove south on Buckley, to where county maintenance on the road ended, checking trees and watching for flying raptors. Again, no luck. Turned back to Spencer, and headed east on Spencer, then left on Schoolhouse Lane, left on Tucker, left on Jackson Highway and back to Buckley. It was fortunate I decided to check Buckley again. This time, I opted to check the fields on the west side of Buckley, and - serendipitously - I saw a mostly-white bird that dropped low enough to show up against a fairly distant tree line. Buckley doesn't have much traffic, so I stopped, grabbed the binocs and confirmed the identity.

Then I grabbed the camera and was able to get some distant/grainy/marginal photos, but they were good enough to show the dark shoulder patches, large white tail, small head relative to the body and small bill. And also typical kite behavior - hover hunting frequently, in addition to some flying/soaring.

Photos are attached to my eBird report - https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S43931423 .

John Tubbs
Lacey, WA
johntubbs AT comcast DOT net

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