One of our maintenance guys reported a possible Swainson's hawk at Sherburne today, saying it had been around since Tuesday. Our biologist saw it and thought that's what it was too - but she doesn't have a lot of experience with this species. I went looking early in the afternoon and couldn't find it, but on the way home late this afternoon saw a couple of hawks soaring at a long distance. One was very obviously a red-tailed, but the other one was a different shape - very Swainson's-looking to me, but I could only see silhouette and no color at all, so that's just a guess. Swainson's were common where I lived in Utah. It has the right shape (in silhouette), but I know it can be deceiving as well, especially today with the winds we had, and terrible light.
SO, if anyone is driving along County Roads 5 or 9 (the NW part of the refuge) over the weekend, please watch - see if you can help us out. There are quite a few red-tailed hawks in the area as well, and one is very light - no obvious belly band of any kind, makes you look twice. I also saw the refuge's first spring kestrel on the way home tonight. Where are the bluebirds? Betsy Beneke Sherburne NWR and Avon, Stearns Co. ---- Join or Leave mou-net: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives: http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html
