Hello Tweeters,

I have misidentified raptors more than once for those of you
in Tweeter land. I ask your indulgence once again. Bill and I drove up to
Lynden, the Hannegan Flats area, today to try to find the Lapland Longspurs
that several others have seen. We failed in this endeavor. Instead we
gazed for a long time at a large (Cackling Goose-sized) raptor in an
inaccessible field between 800 feet and a quarter mile away from us. It was
standing in a grassy area with lots of crows. The only photos we could get
are almost useless, but, nonetheless, I am going to share two of them here
in hopes that the raptor experts among you will tell me that this is a
Golden Eagle.

This bird is at least twice as big as a Red-tailed Hawk
(compare its size to the nearby crows). It is much browner than an immature
Bald Eagle. The bird has a lot of white on its belly and legs. I can see
pictures online with immature Golden Eagles like this. None of my pictures
show the tail, where I hoped to have seen a significant white band. The
first two pictures in the set of photos below shows the bird we saw today.



https://www.flickr.com/photos/29258421 at N07/albums/72157713466898697



So what do you think? Is this a Golden Eagle or something
much less interesting.



Charlotte Byers, Edmonds

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