[TopOfUtah] Cache Co. Ferruginous Hawk, Albino N. Shoveler

[Connie McManus]

Ryan nice picture of the ferruginous hawk!  Can anyone tell me how these
hawks hunt?  Saturday,, I went to Mantua Lake and saw an unID'd hawk flying
low over the slough on the south side of the lake.  All I caught was a flash
of a heavily barred (roufous barring) breast as it flew by.  It had a short
tail and that's about all I could get of this lovely bird.

Other birds:
American coots >1000 the entire lake was covered wth them
gadwall

On Sun, Nov 16, 2008 at 6:52 PM, Ryan O'Donnell <ryan at biology.usu.edu>wrote:

> I birded several locations around Cache County today with Stephanie
> Cobbold.  We were unable to relocate the Snow Bunting she reported
> yesterday from the USU Forestry Station.  We did relocate two of the
> three FERRUGINOUS HAWKS found by Craig Fosdick yesterday in Clarston.
> These were my first of the year in the county and only my second and
> third ever in the county.  They seem to be much more common just over
> the mountains in Box Elder County.   A photo is here:
>
> http://i110.photobucket.com/albums/n105/Tsirtalis/FEHAsmall.jpg
>
> Benson Marina had lots of American Coots, a few Common Goldeneye, both
> Western and Clark's Grebes, and a couple of distant swans, but none of
> the rare birds we were hoping for.  The Logan City Polishing Ponds, in
> Benson, were packed full of thousands of ducks and other waterfowl,
> mostly American Coots, Gadwall, and Northern Shoveler, but also
> including Eared Grebes, Canvasback, Ring-necked Duck, American Wigeon,
> Green-winged Teal, Mallards, and Canada Geese.  The most interesting
> bird among these was a pure ALBINO NORTHERN SHOVELER.  (Identifying
> albino birds can be tough because there are no plumage features to rely
> on.  I beleive this bird's shape, size, structure, and especially bill
> shape and size were consistent with Northern Shoveler, plus it seemed to
> be associating with other normal-plumage Northern Shovelers.)  Two
> distant digiscoped shots are here:
>
> http://i110.photobucket.com/albums/n105/Tsirtalis/albinoNSHO.jpg
> http://i110.photobucket.com/albums/n105/Tsirtalis/albinoNSHO2.jpg
>
> Good birding,
> Ryan
>
> Ryan P. O'Donnell
> Department of Biology and the Ecology Center
> Utah State University
> 5305 Old Main Hill
> Logan, UT 84322-5305
>
> http://home.comcast.net/~tsirtalis/
>
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-- 
Connie McManus
Nibley, Cache County, Utah
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