The last two days have been pretty good to me in the world of birds. Yesterday, I made it out to Braddock Bay Raptor Research's Owl Woods to meet up with Frank Nicoletti, the legendary hawk bander and watcher who made a lot of the trails that lead through there. We got in touch with a Long-eared Owl that looked like it was hating life there in the rain, and while the low light picture didn't turn out well at all, every owl is a good owl. After that, Frank and I touched base with a bunch of different birds including 11 King Eider, but the weather was abysmal, and we didn't get a chance to hawk watch together. Ah well. I'm hoping to band some hawks with him at Hawk Ridge in the Fall.
Today was a phenomenal day with my good friend Alec Humann at the Hamburg Hawk Watch. The delicious statistics will be posted >here<, but the highlights were 8 Rough-legged Hawks including a dark morph, 1 Merlin, 2 American Kestrel, 1 Bald Eagle, over 14 Sharp-shinned Hawks, over 5 Cooper's Hawks, at least 2 Northern Harriers, multiple Osprey, and who knows how many Red-tailed Hawks, and Red-shouldered Hawks. After the hawk migration died down, Alec and I ripped over to the Niagara River for a Tufted Duck that was found by Jim Pawlicki earlier in the morning. We made contact with a beautiful hen specimen for a short while in Rich Marina before they took off for the River proper. Lifer! I grabbed a few shots of almost full breeding plumaged Bonaparte's Gulls in the Marina before calling it a day. Not bad birding at all.
Today was a phenomenal day with my good friend Alec Humann at the Hamburg Hawk Watch. The delicious statistics will be posted >here<, but the highlights were 8 Rough-legged Hawks including a dark morph, 1 Merlin, 2 American Kestrel, 1 Bald Eagle, over 14 Sharp-shinned Hawks, over 5 Cooper's Hawks, at least 2 Northern Harriers, multiple Osprey, and who knows how many Red-tailed Hawks, and Red-shouldered Hawks. After the hawk migration died down, Alec and I ripped over to the Niagara River for a Tufted Duck that was found by Jim Pawlicki earlier in the morning. We made contact with a beautiful hen specimen for a short while in Rich Marina before they took off for the River proper. Lifer! I grabbed a few shots of almost full breeding plumaged Bonaparte's Gulls in the Marina before calling it a day. Not bad birding at all.