Dear Bird Watchers, I was near Bolton today, running in a THOMASS winter orienteering race in the Humber Valley off Duffy's Lane. Since I was so close, I decided I'd detour over to have a look for the Golden Eagle sighted in Mono Road. I didn't find the GOEA, but I did find a rather magnificent Dark Morph Rough-legged Hawk in the area as consolation. It was a large individual, very evenly dark from head to tail when perched. In flight, from below, it sported sharply contrasting white flight feathers with dark tips. Very flashy. Sibley shows the tail feathers from below as light with a dark terminal band. This bird appeared to have all dark tail feathers, as have other Dark Morph Rough-legged Hawks I've observed. I was about 150m away with full sun at my back when I first observed it perched in a large tree in a sparse hedgerow NW of Castlederg Side Road, 300m SW of Innis Lake Road. I don't think it liked the look of my 2001 Civic, as it flew toward me and then abruptly did a short half circle so it was then flying directly away. The half circle gave me an excellent view of its underside, as described, and in its flapping I could clearly see the upper sides of its wings were completely dark. As it flew directly away, each flap revealed a white patch near the wrist of each wing due to the twist of the wings on the down stroke revealing a small portion of the under-wing by the wrist. Gorgeous bird. It hung around in a 1 km x 1 km square SW of Innis Lake Road and centred on Castlederg Side Road from 12:30 to 1:00 PM. I drove SW on Castlederg, NW on Airport Road to Mono Road and SW on Olde Base Line Road to Mountainview Road, NW to Walker Road W, then NE on Walker Road W to Airport Road, then SE to Old Church Road (which has a lot of new churches on it), then S on Innis Lake Road to Castlederg Road where I saw the Roughy again, this time SE of Castlederg Road. I then gave up on the GOEA and headed back to Midhurst.
Incidentally, I did see a Pileated Woodpecker where the Humber River and the Bruce Trail cross Castlederg Side Road between The Gore Road and Humber Station Road. Happy Birding, The Dragonhunter's Apprentice [email protected] _______________________________________________ ONTBIRDS is presented by the Ontario Field Ornithologists - the provincial birding organization. Send bird reports to [email protected] For information about ONTBIRDS visit http://www.ofo.ca/
