ML369470521
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Observation details
I was talked into hiking in the morning. The Olympic Peninsula is stunning, but Shi Shi beach isn't exactly dripping with birds (hey, it would be a wonderful place to sink some time into in July), so I was relieved to be back at Neah Bay by late morning. Being a weekend there were other birders covering town, but so far it was a fairly mundane morning - the awesome WWCR irruption continued, but warblers and other passerines were remarkably scarce. Cold east winds and light snow overnight probably didn't help on that front. The booby at Cape Flattery hadn't reappeared, and Waatch Valley hadn't been producing much. But Neah is a great patch, so just seeing the turnover on the bay, newly arrived shrike in town, etc. was keeping us all entertained. We were on our first circuit through the main/west part of town when, at 11:58 AM, I noticed a hawk flying way off over the hills to the west of town. It seemed to be coming in from the south, following the east flank of Bahokus Peak. A couple crows began to mob it as it dropped in elevation. It was too far away to identify for sure, but I was wondering...uhhhhh....is this a frickin Zone-tailed!? It flew like a Turkey Vulture. Luckily we were actually right by the car, having parked by the creek mouth to do a quick walk around this part of town before returning to Butler's. So after pointing out the hawk to mom, I urgently asked if she could set up the scope while I tried to obtain a video. I got a solid 22 seconds of footage (see attached) (apparently that's how long it takes to set up a scope lol) but just as mom finished setting up the scope the hawk quit circling and plummeted northward, disappearing behind slope to the left of the jetty. Convinced that I had a bad case of Neah fever, we continued on with our day as if nothing had happened. But not an hour later, mom spotted the raptor above the school field, though it disappeared behind trees to the south quicker than you can say "Arizona". It did look very vulture like...was it even a hawk?? We were unsure. Finally a bit after 2pm we decided to swing by Butler's Motel for a quick bathroom stop. I was driving down the block, about to pull up in front of the motel, when a dark hawk with gleaming yellow feet came teetering maybe 20 feet above the front of the car. I slammed on the brakes, yelled "holy shit!!!!!" and hopped out in the middle of the road...luckily I had the camera next to my seat, and within seconds I was getting a shaky video of this stunning state first! It cruised west towards the school field again, and I raced after it, but luckily it circled back and we realized it was gonna stick around for a bit. Luckily the car hadn't gone anywhere so we parked it and immediately called Matt Dufort, since we had met him and exchanged numbers a bit earlier. Remarkably nobody else had seen the hawk yet, so I think it indeed had just arrived at noon and may have been cruising the outskirts of town until now. Matt came and watched it with us from the east side of the school field. It continued to circle around the general area for the next half hour. I returned to Butler's briefly to connect to wifi and send out an eBird report, then returned for some more viewing of the very out-of-place desert raptor roaming town to the lush backdrop of mossy sitka spruce trees and chattering white-winged crossbills. Identification: in the late afternoon sunlight (which was nice change after a chilly morning with light snow and rain), the gleaming yellow feet and cere were incredibly obvious. Large buteo; almost identical in size and shape to a Turkey Vulture. All black plumage, expect for white (with faint black bars) where TUVUs are silvery-colored on the primaries and secondaries, and a dark tail with thin white bands. In addition to the tail pattern. just a couple white speckles on the breast also suggest juvenile. Behavior: it cruised low over town; often mobbed by crows; behaved much like a vulture (teetering a bit side to side); we never saw it land, or catch anything. We observed the bird again the following morning, and it was seen a few miles further east the day after.
Technical information
- Camera
- Microphone
- Accessories
- Original file size
- 30.39 MB