Hello All,
I arrived at the Knox County Raven area at about 1:15 PM today and saw
very little, driving the area roads, until about 2:00 PM when I spotted a
Rough-legged Hawk in flight from College Hill Road, near the pole barn that is
under construction. I pulled over and got out of the car for better looks and
almost immediately heard the "croak" call of a Common Raven. Looking in the
direction I thought the sound came from, I saw nothing at first, then realized
that the Raven was also in flight and in pursuit of the RL Hawk. By now, both
birds were nearly directly above for great looks. The Raven was nearly as large
as the hawk and the wedge-shaped tail and large beak were easily seen. Within a
couple of minutes, the hawk had moved on to the N and the Raven was flying over
the pole barn and then over the wooded hillside beyond. I immediately drove
along the roads in that direction, but was never able to relocate the bird
during the next 45 minutes or so. I did find/hear four Common Crows that were
interacting among themselves, but based on all reports, the Raven doesn't seem
to be associating with them, at least on a regular basis. This was also the case
last Thursday when we were not successful in finding the Raven, but did find a
few crows. Also seen later and moving through the area was 1 Turkey Vulture, and
3 Black Vultures.
On another note, and as a follow-up to an earlier post about seeing two
dead skunks on the road, I counted 14 dead skunks along SR 3 between Sunbury and
Loudenville, OH! Eleven of them were between Sunbury and Mt. Vernon. In
addition, one had been killed on SR 161, just S of Westerville. And so there
were 15 of them in all! I've never seen this many skunks killed on the roadway
over this short a distance (approximately 50 miles of roadway) and am wondering
if it is mostly due to this warm spell we've had, or perhaps related to their
mating season? Other roadkill species, in this same stretch, included 7 Racoons,
and one Opossum.
Good Birding,
Dan
Dan Sanders
42 Scioto St
Powell, OH 43065
614-596-5666
<[log in to unmask]>
______________________________________________________________________
Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society.
Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list.
Additional discussions can be found in our forums, at www.ohiobirds.org/forum/.
You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at:
http://listserv.muohio.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDS
Send questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask]
|