Hey Ontbirders. Sorry for the delayed post but it shouldn't matter in this
case, this is more of a "wow, that's neat!" , "keep your eyes peeled", kind of
post!
On Wednesday evening on my drive east across Toronto I encountered an
'interesting' Red-tailed Hawk. Just as I was about to merging onto the 407
after exiting off the 427 north I noticed a pale raptor from the corner of my
eye sitting VERY CLOSE on a nearby bush on the south side of the 407. I
immediately pulled off, put it in reverse and krept backwards (not in heavy
traffic thank god!). Unfortunately the bird did fly further on before I could
get close-up photos but I was able to digiscope it perched on one of the 407
license plate readers, lol.
I've sent the photos to the OFO photo editor and whatever I got you can see.
In general though, the bird was super pale. Pale brown streaking sparsely on
the belly, otherwise mostly white below. Much paler upperparts than your
typical Eastern Red-tailed Hawk. Paler beak? Very white supercilium (eye line
stripe). Pale auriculars and nape, but still an obvious mark of very pale
brown from the malar and side of neck as well as pale brown streaking on the
crown. No dark patagium in the one flight shot I obtained. The tail was a
pale, washed out background with thin darker bands and no obvious terminal band
at least that I saw.
At any rate a very interesting bird that made me stop on the 407 - not many
birds can say they've done that to a birder!
Cheers,
Andrew Keaveney
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