This weekend we spotted a different bird from Maple Leaf Reservoir Park – a Sharp-shinned Hawk.
From the Cornell Lab of Ornithology:
A tiny hawk that appears in a blur of motion—and often disappears in a flurry of feathers. That’s the Sharp-shinned Hawk, the smallest hawk in North America and a daring, acrobatic flier.
Not only that – THIS sharpie was chasing crows just north of the park – crows that were considerably bigger than the hawk.
From “Hawks in Flight” (Dunne, Sibley and Sutton):
“They are feisty and frequently harass other raptors as large or larger than themselves … during migration.”
This makes the 31st species on our park bird list. (We’re still waiting for an Osprey.)
(Photo by Steve Berardi)
Do my frequent sightings of osprey some summers ago count? Perched on top of the cell tower every day eating a fish hooked in a talon, skimming the reservoir (when it was still open water), fly-bys, etc. It even took a bath in a nearby birdbath. Haven’t seen any since that summer though.
Editor: Evening, Dale. Sadly, not unless you climbed over your back fence into the park proper. The “rules” are that you have to have seen the bird in the park or from the park. (Or over the park.)
We have listed a few rare species -the Merlins, for example – that we saw from the old park, but are so far drawing the line at birds we’ve seen from our house which could readily be seen from the park, but weren’t (because it was off limits).