ML173542731

Age and sex

Juvenile, Unknown sex - X

Observation details

I was driving roads south of the Cedar Rapids Airport en route to pick up a friend at the airport around 1:15 PM. While driving along Linn Johnson Rd NW I happened to see a stand of white pine on a farmstead on the south side of the road (Johnson Co.) with a large accipiter perched out in the wide open. Luckily, I had been birding earlier and I had my camera with me. As I approached the bird nothing in my mind/searching pattern was triggered i.e. I knew it was too big to be a Cooper's Hawk. I was able to photograph the juvenile bird. It was very white and appeared rather long in length (from head to tail) on approach. Photos revealed very large wings like a buteo, a white supercilium, the outer wings have rufous coloration/speckling, the tail-bands are uneven (with the light bands being thicker than the dark ones and also with some thin white edging between the light and dark bands, but not apparent on the last couple terminating bands), and pale bars were located on the greater coverts. As it flew away from me it tore back into the property into some thicker foliage. I noticed the base of its tail was much broader than a Cooper's Hawk, even without binoculars. Photos were confirmed by JF in the field as I coincidentally ran into him later that day.

Technical information

Model

Canon EOS 7D

ISO

800

Focal length

400 mm

Flash

Flash did not fire, auto

f-stop

f/5.6

Shutter speed

1/800 sec

Dimensions

4278 pixels x 3034 pixels

Original file size

9.99 MB