Favoritos de mbwildlife

In the field our group passed this off as a Rough-legged hawk. Indeed, the overall the impression of the bird is that of a Rough-legged Hawk, with some notable deviations that mark this bird as a hybrid. Many of the features resemble a typical Rough-legged (small bill, thick dark belly band, dark carpal patches, extensive white at the base of the tail), while the evenly spaced dark tail bands are reminiscent of a Red-tailed Hawk. The tail is also quite long, going past the primary extension. This overall mix of traits of both Rough-legged and Red-tailed Hawks has lead me to the conclusion that this bird is a hybrid.

Confirmed by Nick Kiehl, Jerry Liguori, Neil Paprocki, and others.

OK, here is a set of cruddy enough photos to challenge anyone, but it is an important record in the bird history of rarities in the U.S.

If anyone happens to have the new National Geographic Field Guide to the Birds, 6th Edition, if you look at page 534 you will see Crane Hawk listed as one of the "accidentals" which is not treated in the regular species accounts of that book. This record is based on a bird which visited Santa Ana N.W.R. in south Texas from 20 Dec 1987 until 9 April 1988. I was able to see this bird on 2 January 1988 and got some poor quality photos in the rain and dark, very overcast and drizzly skies. Somewhere, others got some better photos which I have seen, but in the 25 years since I have lost track of who had other shots. The record is accepted by the ABA (American Birding Association), the AOU (American Ornithologists Union) and the Texas Bird Records Committee (TBRC). The TBRC web page has two of these same shots at:

http://www.texasbirdimages.com/home/region-7/crane-hawk---region-7

and there is an account of the bird on the Texas Ornithological Society "Handbook of Texas Birds" web site at:

http://books.google.com/books?id=Zvj31yQwNoAC&pg=PA44&lpg=PA44&dq=crane+hawk+in+texas&source=bl&ots=zQ_RFW9n4u&sig=oc6GtbHEvaWVb97ulxQEGwLXDU8&hl=en&sa=X&ei=A-6KUPq4LZSBrQGsvYDYDA&ved=0CCMQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=crane%20hawk%20in%20texas&f=false

This hawk, essentially a tropical species (its normal range is as far north as central Tamaulipas, Mexico where I have seen it on a few occasions), has quite long, reddish legs, a small head and a long tail with several white bands. It has paddle-shaped wings, with white crescents on the base of the primaries (which are not visible in any of the photos I have). The long legs are used to reach into crevices in dead trees to catch bats and other prey items. Anyway, the photos, in combination, allow for a positive ID for those familiar with the species, but I fully admit they are sorry photos. It was a long time ago, on grainy film and a dark day and the shots were the best I could do at the time with the equipment I had. The bird was quite skittish and very few people got any shots at all, even though the bird was seen by hundreds of folks during the three months it remained at Santa Ana. Sometimes the bird was not seen for many days in a row, but on other occasions it was seen easily. Since this remains the only U.S. record of the species, I thought I would post the shots here as a general interest item for raptor enthusiasts.

"Toto, I don't think we're [on Salton Drive] anymore!"
MK and I took a break from the cold (?) Texas winter with a 12-day getaway in Guatemala on a birding trip. This digi-scoped male Quetzal seems like an appropriate subject to start my uploads. I'll have a few more birds, a handful of moths and insects, and a ton of plants to upload in coming days and weeks.
Scope views of the present bird courtesy of one of our premier guides, Josue de León L.

Sat there for a while after I saw it fly to the branch. Eventually flew away, and luckily I got a video of it taking off. I'm not sure which species it is and how to ID most Buteos, so I'm keeping it at genus level.

Video link: https://youtu.be/02UQT5m9Aps
New Year's Day at Phinizy Swamp Nature Park; Richmond County, Georgia. ©www.williamwisephoto.com

• Clouds and sun, with a high near 81; wind gusts as high as 25 mph.
• Sunrise 7:32 am; Sunset 5:31 pm
• Daylight Hours: 9 hours, 59 minutes (+31s)
• Moon: 1.8% Waning Crescent

Hundreds of migrating Snow Geese, come all the way from the Arctic if I'm not mistaken. I made many observations of them so I'll just write notes on this one.

This was a really incredible experience to see all of these birds congregating and flying gracefully. Migration is something I've never given much thought to, and I haven't really ever gone out searching for migrating species before.

The snow geese almost appeared to be heading straight for us at one point, and they were incredibly, INCREDIBLY loud.

Spotted near Grand Prairie on the eastern side of the Okefenokee. Satellite tracker attached to its back. https://okefenokee.photography/2021/12/11/techno-gators/

Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge, Georgia.

• Sunny, with a high near 66F.
• Sunrise 6:56 AM; Sunset 5:31 PM
• Daylight hours: 10 hours, 35 minutes (-1m 23s)
• Moon 80% Waxing Gibbous

Adult recovered from a concrete formed well pit (about 4' deep). See second image where its head is in limited sun illumination. I believe that small animals cannot escape this man-made inadvertent pitfall trap so I check it often.

On August 16, we witnessed what has to rank with one of the most incredible wildlife experiences I’ve ever had. Cheryl and I were on a trip with 6 other nature photographers and our leader. We had been in the Pantanal area of Brazil for about a week with 5 days along the Cuiaba River near Porto Jofre, looking for Jaguars and other photo ops. Our daily routine was breakfast at 5:30 AM and we took off on boats from 6 till about 11AM, lunch at noon at the lodge, then on the boats again 3PM till dark. Our group has 3 boats so just 3 people per boat so plenty of room for photo gear, etc. Over several days we had seen 10-12 Jaguars. Some were very good photo ops, some poor photo ops, some just glimpsed.

There are several lodges in the area and it is a popular place to visit for folks hoping to see Jaguars, so much like Yellowstone National Park, a crowd can gather when some significant wildlife is seen, but instead of car jams to see a Grizzly such as Yellowstone, this can be boat jams for a jaguar. I have seen as many as 22 boats, 70-100 feet off shore with lots of people in each boat taking photos of a sleeping Jaguar. BUT…that is not the end of the story! We were often in more remote areas of the rivers and inlets and streams more or less on our own looking for birds, etc., so lots of times there are no other boats around. The boat drivers all have radios, so if a Jaguar is seen, other boats are informed. We move 20-25 miles up and down the river to explore, so many times other boats are not close enough to arrive while a Jaguar is in view.

My limited Jaguar experience is that some are just sleeping and/or resting and mostly ignore the boats in the river. Others are walking though the edge of the forest near the river and when a boat becomes visible, the animal just vanishes back into the forest. This morning at about 7:30 AM our three boats were in an out-of-the way location, a mile or so apart. The boat I was in was photographing a Great Black Hawk when one of our other boats called us on the radio to say they had a Jaguar swimming in the river, apparently hunting, so we headed to that area. Apparently the Jaguar, with just its head visible, swam up to loafing Yacare Caimans and pounced onto a caiman which was about 6 or so feet long. The Jaguar and the caiman thrashed in the water with the Jaguar biting into the skull of the caiman. That is about the time our boat arrived, after the Jaguar had mostly subdued the caiman, but the caiman was still thrashing about. The Jaguar was up against a high dirt bank, still mostly in the water with a firm grip on the skull of the caiman and the Jaguar was not letting go. It was very dark and under heavy foliage and vines so I was shooting at 4000 and 6400 ISO but that was my only choice. Eventually the Jaguar was able to work itself and its prize away from the vines and it drug the caiman out of the water and up the dirt bank and eventually back into the forest to enjoy its catch beyond the curious and amazed eyes of the human observers. The caiman was as large or larger than the Jaguar. All I have to say is that a mature Jaguar is an incredibly powerful predator and watching this whole 15 minute episode is something I’ll not forget. What a beast!

This entire series was shot from a boat, perhaps 40 feet off the bank with a Canon EOS 7D Mark II and a Canon 100-400 IS lens in case anyone is interested.

Cuiaba River,
near Porto Jofre,
Pantanal,
Brazil
16 August 2017