Interesting. About two weeks ago from my office parking lot at Euclid and the river I had Cliff Swallows dive-bombing a small raptor which I was 99 percent sure was a Mississippi Kite. Nesting between here and there? Ann Johnson Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
-----Original Message----- From: [email protected] Date: Thu, 20 May 2010 12:03:54 To: IA-BIRD<[email protected]> Subject: [ia-bird] Yellow-throater Warbler and Mississippi Kite (?) in Des Moines The Yellow-throated Warbler was in sycamores along the closed bike rail/road just north of Birdland Marina and the 2nd St. bridge in Des Moines. The other bird was along the same trail as above but just north of North High School and was briefly seen over a large lagoon there. At first I thought the bird in the distance was a tern or perhaps a Bonaparte’s Gull because of its buoyant flight. With binoculars it was obviously a raptor; it was long tailed, fairly long-winged, soared and flapped alternately, maintained its buoyant flight style, and was roughly brown in color. Evidently, a sub-adult (second summer) Mississippi Kite would have this plumage although at the distance, although I could not absolutely rule out Sharp-shinned Hawk (definitely not a Coopers) or even Northern Harrier although at least for Harrier, the habitat was all wrong. Bob Cecil Des Moines, IA --- Please contribute your sightings to our list; it is only as good as members make it! --- Birding channel recommendation for FRS/GMRS radio use: Primary selection; channel 5/0 , alternate selection; channel 6/0 --- This mailing list is sponsored by the Iowa Ornithologists' Union. Membership available on-line at http://www.iowabirds.org/iou/membership.asp. ----- You are currently subscribed to ia-bird as: [email protected] >W���(���n�^ʋ��(!�)���(��b�ح��'�&��� jɞ����f�z+A��b�!jyޖ���i��֭��ߢ�QK��E*�v*.����f��ǥy�b�w!jyޗ��j[^�v�zǥy�b�w!jyޗ��N�����x%��b��h��+y�������x���h�+-�I��s �����j��z���w��m����������(�����zfޮ�b��)b����.����\��� �&�v�"i��u���b�隊V�r�y�&
