Tuesday afternoon we had an adult Golden Eagle go by Derby Hill on 15 mph ESE-SE winds. SE and ESE winds virtually guarantee that birds originating south of Lake Ontario will hit the lakeshore and make the turn north in the Derby Hill area, a unique situation that allows us to speculate whether it is the same bird. It would need to have traveled about 80 miles in 4-ish hours and implies an average ground speed of ~20 mph, which seems reasonable for a bird spiraling on thermals and gliding out (over and over) and with a small tailwind.
Had the winds been SW the bird might have never made it to the Ontario lakeshore and made the northward turn somewhere off the east end of the Lake. Dave Wheeler N Syracuse, NY -- Cayugabirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/Cayugabirds 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/CAYU.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
