July 7, 2005
Too Big for the Wading Pool.
The other mid-June morning, as I passed the window, I saw what I thought was a cat in the bird bath. A closer look revealed what is possibly an adult Northern Goshawk, Accipiter gentilis, or possibly a Grey Hawk, Buteo nitidus,taking a sitzbath. It stayed about ten minutes, occasionally fluttering in the standard bathing-bird mode. Smaller perching birds, swooping down to the birdbath, did last minute hard-breaking maneuvers and, occasionally, uncharacteristic barks, as they abruptly realized just exactly what they were about to share the birdbath with.
The hawk has returned several times to this location, just east of Walnut Canyon at 6500ft in the Pinyon-Juniper forest.
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Identification has proven difficult for this amateur. I would distinguish as a Goshawk from others by its overall greys with no browns, and from the Grey Hawk by the dark cap. But it lacks the white, flaring eyebrow of the Goshawk. Noting that the cap isn't really darker than the rest of the body and the ceres are grey, it could be the Grey Hawk, but this bird has white cheeks, unlike the Grey Hawk. And the Grey Hawk is even less common here than the Goshawk, which does nest locally. Maybe an Audubon birder will help us out here?