Wednesday, April 18, 2018

A Good Day in the Woods

A good day in the woods. Saw some of the usual: robins, cardinals, chickadees, a brown creeper zigg-zagging up a tree lined with a 'dormant' poison ivy vine.These sightings would be enough to have me call it a good day. But then I noticed a red breasted 'robin' perched high up on a limb as I was well in the center of Steer Swamp. When I got the binoculars on him, he no longer looked so robinish. Rather, a raptor of some kind. And he wasn't just taking in the sights but his was a focus concentrated on something in his grip. Yes, this was a dining experience. And it looked to the best my eyes could make out was maybe a meadow vole. The bird didn't seem to mind a human observer of his supper. I had never seen a falcon this small. I observed and jotted down the various markings, the most characteristic was a facial marking of what looked like war paint---two vertical black stripes running vertically on each side of his face. It was the kind of blacking football players often use under their eyes. Well what was this bird, about the size of a robin, maybe just an ounce or two larger? It had a lot of the similar spotting on the feathers that many birds of prey have. But it was the black stripes that would be the tell-tale clue. Ah, yes. American Kestrel. A first for me. And for him, it looked to be a good day in the woods too.

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