Ferruginous Hawk with only one eye

-

I had found this female light-morph Ferruginous Hawk 3 days ago in the eastern part of my county here in Colorado. I got some close up photos when she landed on a utility pole right across the road from where I was parked.

Though I had looked at this hawk with both my binoculars and when it was further away with my spotting scope, I didn't see that it was missing it's right eye until I uploaded these photos and got a good look at her face.

Having only one eye is a major problem for birds as it would significantly affect their depth perception which would make grabbing prey a difficult task for a raptor. I have read of raptors with one functional eye--one eagle was kept as an educational bird in a raptor center as it ran into things. The other raptor, an Eagle Owl, was released as the raptor center that treated it for injuries with an attached radio transmitter that allowed researches to follow her as she successfully raised a 3 offspring while they noted no detectable differences in her behavior compared to fully sighted birds.


I didn't go back to check on her until today due to snow and extreme cold but did go look for her today. I found her in the same area which is near a prairie dog town, the primary food source for this species. She was more distant and I didn't consider trying to get closer to her as I do not want to interfere with her hunting. It was too cold still to watch her to see how successful she is but will try to do so when it warms up a bit. SeEtta

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Spotted Sandpiper Chicks, 3 more days older

-
Image
Two days when I went to check on the Spotted Sandpiper family at Florence River Park I thought they had likely perished--there were two men engaged in gold panning right where the parent sandpiper had been and they had dug some of the sand from the bank where I last saw the sandpiper chicks. Arggh, I was afraid that all this activity, plus a large off leash dog with these people, would have scared the parent away and even if the chicks were successful in hiding in the vegetation they would not survive without a parent at their young age. What a surprise when I returned that evening for one last check to be accosted by the parent sandpiper calling loudly and challenging me by walking right towards me (and my dog). It took awhile for the parent to settle down and for one of the chicks to walk in some grass where I could spot it--the parent had moved the chicks about 150 from the river into an area with a lot of vegetation. I returned day before yesterday and refound the parent and ...
Read more

Recently fledged Common Raven

-
Image
At the end of March this year I spotted a Common Raven going into a crevice above a rock face of a local cliff area called Castle Rock (as part of it looks sort of like a castle). I started watching this area and observed a pair of Common Ravens spending time around this location. On March 27 I spotted one of the ravens inside the crevice which now had what looked like nesting material in it--the photograph of that is the second pic here. I continued off and on to check this apparent crevice nest. At the end of May I saw what appeared to be a nestling inside the crevice. I continued birding in the riparian forest across the Arkansas River from this cliff area. When I was about a quarter mile away I heard a lot of raven racket and walked to a spot where I could see the cliff area through my binoculars. I could see a lot of raven action with the parent birds calling loudly so I expected that the nestling may have fledged or they were trying to get it to fledge. I went back t...
Read more

Band-tailed Pigeons, the mountain pigeons

-
Image
I spotted a small flock of about 9 or 10 of these Band-tailed Pigeons in a tiny unincorporated town called Greenwood which is south of Canon City about 20 miles (via winged flight). The homes in Greenwood are right up against the San Isabel National Forest and forests are the habitat for these mountain pigeons. The white collar on the nape of this species can be seen in the pic above.  The broad pale gray terminal band on a darker upper tail (and below the light undertail coverts) is best seen in pic below.  SeEtta
Read more