ML22394061

Age

Not specified

Sex

Not specified

Observation details

On Saturday, December 19, 2015, Ryan Sallman & Spence Stehno were finishing our day and section of the Waukesha – Ben Goss Bird Club Christmas Bird Count. We saw this large bird as we were getting to the south end of the Lakeside Drive South cul-de-sac, in Hidden Lakes Subdivision, Mukwonago, WI, about 3:50 PM. Sunset was at 4:19pm and this was causing accents in the coloring of this bird. The bird was circling, and it was going slowly away from us. It would seem that the bird was about 150+ yards away and flying about 100-300 feet in the sky. I called it a “rough-legged” hawk as the solid dark band at the bottom of the under-tail was clear. It was hard to keep the bird in view as we were in the car & jumping out, and the bird kept moving out of view in our position, and then flew over and behind the trees. I had my binoculars on the bird for about 4-6 seconds seeing the underside, and then it turned and the coloring was harder to continue to see. Meanwhile Ryan is taking photos as efficiently as possible as shown below. It was about 24F. Wind W/SW 6 mph. Sky was clear. Lighting was from the “right-ish” area of the screen where the sun would have been almost setting giving some “glow” to the view. The view of the bird would have put it right around and over the intersection of the Fox River with National Avenue / Cnty Hwy ES, or the area of Heaven City Restaurant. On the camera screen, it wasn’t clear what we were seeing, and Ryan when home increased the size to show characteristics of the rounding of the wings, and the lack of white on the underside. It looks like in some of the images the golden color and nape is visible as well. The overall head, tail, and wing shape with the wingtip feathers spread like fingers, and the shorter head / neck, along with a consistent darker color, even with setting sun lighting, qualifies it for an adult Golden

Technical information

Model

DMC-FZ70

ISO

100

Focal length

215 mm

Flash

Flash did not fire, auto

f-stop

f/5.9

Shutter speed

1/200 sec

Dimensions

4608 pixels x 3456 pixels

Original file size

5.93 MB