Saturday the 30th my wife and I were travelling north on Mt. Hope Road,
north of SR250, and just before it dead-ends on Emerson Road (between Apple
Creek and Kidron) I saw a large dark clump on the highest limb in a large
tree on my right. I slowed and expected "red tail" but it was too dark and
the size was more Vulture size. 

The first thing that struck me was that the head was noticable lighter brown
than the body. I was trying for my camera when I saw it was leaving the
branch. It dropped, turned and banked away from us then started slowly north
across Emerson Road and soared past the farm where they put the house that
was recently moved from Gerber Hardware property in Kidron.

 When the bird spread it's wings we both saw white square patches on the
underside of the wings. they were centered in the wing from front to back,
and were more than half way to the end of the wings. There was also a wide
white band on the tail that was striking as the bird banked, and we would
have been looking at the top of the tail. My wife said that she thought the
bird was too "stately" looking for the common red tail we were expecting to
see. It wasn't till I came home and checked my books that I even suspected
an eagle. 

Sibley's picture of the top side Juvenile is exactly what we remember
seeing. The golden brown head would be consistent with my first suspection
that something was different when I saw it sitting. Both our views were
naked eye(should have grabbed the bino's, not the camera). It was 3:00 pm or
just after, and there was plenty of light to see the coloration when it took
flight. The tree was a couple hundred feet from the road. 

I stopped in at my birder friend, Marlin Weaver, today for a reality check
on what we saw. His first logical option was Rough-legged. The lighter head
would be noticable on all but the dark morph. Also, it has a white tail
feather band just past the rump. The underwing, however, is white from tip
to body on the trailing edge and the predominate marking is a black square
on a lighter wing, which is backward of what we saw. Although the RL Hawk is
a couple of inches larger than the Red tail, the silhouette doesn't fit the
perched bird we saw.

 I've seen the Wild's golden eagle a couple of times but under quite
different circumstances. There the Golden was flying in and around Red Tails
and Harriers and size was comparable and that was with bino's, but with the
bird much farther away. 

Well, it's exciting anyhow, just to have the chance to suspect what we saw
so close to home. I live near Dalton, at Lake Harmony and we were less than
10 miles from home. Another memory bird.
 DeLorme PG 51 B4 

Norm

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