Weather today is overcast, as most days have been this spring in the Pacific Northwest. It was so nice to see even a partly sunny sky a few days ago....a brief interlude of partial sun between a cloudy morning and evening. I went out for a bicycle ride to enjoy it. Down at the bay I saw a big flock of buffleheads with a few mergansers and goldeneyes pootling around on the calm water.
Then all at once everybody took off —
When that happens, I look up. It usually means (if it’s not a boater coming in) that an eagle is flying overhead. And indeed — there it was.
But with a Glaucous-winged gull in noisy pursuit. These are both big birds: the eagle with a 7 foot wingspan, the gull with a 4.5 foot wingspan. Gulls can be aggressive, even against larger birds like eagles and turkey vultures, when they feel put upon...for whatever reason. Someone in my previous bucket about the fighting gulls on the beach suggested that maybe they just didn’t like each other. That’s entirely possible, and maybe the best explanation for attacking for no apparent reason (such as food or nesting).
The gull pursued the eagle, screeching.
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They both passed right over my head, heading inland.
Unfortunately I missed the next instant when the gull literally jabbed the eagle on its back! Rats!!
Then they both flew off inland.
Another raptor cruising in to land on the tree is what I thought was a RedTail hawk by its shape and size, but on looking at my fuzzy photo it has red legs.
It has a red tail, and the photo below shows a characteristic black bar on the leading edge of its wing. I know there’s a lot of variation in RedTails but I haven’t heard of red legs.
Harriers are fairly common around here but this one doesn’t have a long striped tail.
Hawks are not my strong suit. Anybody have any thoughts about who this might be?
A really big bird I’ve been seeing lately is the Turkey Vultures. After a winter down south they are back in numbers over the past couple of weeks. It’s so intriguing to me that after the previous few winters when more and more vultures chose to stay here rather than migrate, this past winter all but one or two departed in October. Did they know we were going to have an unprecedentedly cold dark winter and spring? Mysterious. But so welcome to see them circling overhead again everywhere.
I have not seen either of the ospreys who spend the summer around the bays in this part of the island yet. A few ospreys have been reported recently elsewhere in western Washington according to eBird but none yet in my county. In past years I’ve seen them first in this bay in May sometime.
Time to share what you’re seeing in nature around your neighborhood.
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