The bird was seen as a fly-by from Sandpiper. I didn't have an
opportunity to see as many details as those that saw it on perch the day
before. Sorry for the late post, actually it is not a late post. The
afternoon post is somewhere in cyberspace. I arrived at Sandpiper about
12 noon and after talking with other birders I was convinced that the
bird was not in the area at that time so I drove to Big Creek State Park
for a look. I then returned to Sandpiper at parked on the closed
service road to the south of the wood piles which gave me a view of the
sky and most of the lake from the dam to the bridge. While there I saw
a very dark Red-tailed Hawk just over the tree line to the north. A few
minutes later at 1:05 PM I saw another bird at the same location but it
was flying away from me and I could not get an ID except to note that it
was very dark and the same size or larger than the RTHA. In a few
minutes a dark bird approached my position heading south and following
the bluff line. The bird looked like a raptor in size and wing shape
except it was totally black. It then turned and used the wind to tack
across the lake going by several gulls on the way. As it passed the
gulls the size was again confirmed. I lost the bird in the tree line
on the west side of the lake near the radar tower. The tail only
appeared to be average length for the bird size. The tail didn't have a
fan shape but I can not say it was wedge shaped at anytime I noted it in
flight. I then drove to the tail water area and studied American Crows
that were hanging out at Bob Shelter, from 70 +/- sample size there
wasn't anything that compared to the Raven.
I do not have a smart phone so I called one of the regular IOU Listerv
posters with the report and they reported. The post has not shown up
since. Looks like a problem with the listserv server.
Gerald White
Muscatine,IA
--
"Those who get too big for their pants will be totally exposed in the end"
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