Birds and Nature

I spotted this adult Northern Goshawk this afternoon a few miles east of Canon City in a cactus grassland area as it flew across the road in front of me. While I couldn't see field marks as I was too distant it's flying very low to the ground got my attention. When it landed in a juniper shrub about 200 feet from me I stopped my car and saw it's white eyebrow in my binoculars so grabbed my camera and quickly got off a few shots in the short time before it flew off. As I only had about 30 seconds to get pics and there was no good place to pull off the road I had to take the pics with my car running (pulled to the side of the driving lane, fortunately no traffic came by) so that added to less than great shots. But these pics clearly show the salient field marks for adult Northern Goshawk: that big white supercilium (eyebrow stripe, dark stripe through eye, dark cap, long tail, bluish grey upperparts and some broad dark but inconspicuous bands on it's grey tail ...

I think this pic shows the white supercilium that is one of the field marks of this species. SeEtta

Soon the juvenile Northern Goshawk was flushed by the bird mobbing it and I caught these pics as it flew past me. Northern Goshawks are noted to use "all types of coniferous forests" during winter according to Colorado Birds by Andrews and Righter. Though the photos lose quality, the eyes can seen by double clicking on the top pic to enlarge eye. SeEtta

As I walked back down the dry gulch where I was looking for sapsucker work, I spotted this juvenile Northern Goshawk perched in a deciduous tree on the top of a ridge several hundred yards away. As I took these pics I saw that a bird was harassing the goshawk. More in next post. SeEtta