Hi Guys,

So I had a very exciting sighting tonight while driving from Dayton, OH to
visit my sister in Morgantown, WV.  As I was driving East on Rt 70, aprox a
mile from exit 164, an all gray bird flushed from the trees alongside the
highway, approximately 100 feet in front of my car. Since I was going about
70mph, I caught up to it in literally a second or two.  For the next few
seconds it was flying right alongside my car and I had a perfect profile
view of it.  Obviously, I had to focus on the road as well, but luckily
there were no cars around me at this time, so I made sure to study the bird
the best I could in the short time I had. I instantly knew this was not a
pigeon or a dove, as the flight characteristics were just different than
any pigeon or dove I had ever seen. Also the first and most shocking thing
I noticed about the bird was that it appeared to be completely uniformly
gray - all over it's body.  Never before had I ever seen a bird this color.

Let me also note that I have never seen a Mississippi Kite before and I am
not too familiar at all with its field marks, but I have seen quite a few
photos. Immediately after seeing the bird I screamed to myself,"MISSISSIPPI
KITE!!!" I then grabbed my phone and immediately made a voice recording of
everything I saw so that I wouldn't later try to convince myself I saw
something i didnt see after looking at a picture in my Sibley field guide.
Here is what I recorded, verbatim, on my iPhone immediately after seeing
the bird (when I recorded this I wasn't thinking I was going to share my
exact words with everyone, so disregard my poor grammar and use of certain
words):

"Exit 164 Norwich Rt 70east. Mississippi Kite! all gray underbody as well
as all the parts of the upper body that I could see, and I believe it had a
gray tail, or mostly gray tail that was squarish in shape with a straight
edge, and it had a smallish head with what appeared to be a slight black
mask (over the eyes), wing-beats were strong and quick and wings made a
nice half circle shape on the downstroke, with the primaries extending out
on the downstroke.  It looked to be a little bit bigger than a pigeon.  I
would say body-wise, uh, maybe a few inches longer, and wings-wise maybe 4
inches longer, so I don't know if that maybe rules it out, but everything I
could see it DEFINITLEY wasn't a pigeon.  It was a perfect gray color, it
was like gray as gray could be."

It is interesting to note that in my recording, after describing the size
of the bird, I suggest that my size description may rule out the
possibility of the bird I saw being a MIKI, because it appeared to only be
slightly larger than a pigeon.  I said this because I was under the
impression they were more the size of a Peregrine falcon. Keep in mind, I
have never seen a MIKI before other than in photos, so I had no idea how
big they were, but for some reason I just assumed they were Peregrine
sized.  Prior to today, I had never looked up what a MIKI's wing and body
dimensions are.  When I stopped a few exits later to grab a sandwich for
dinner, I pulled out my Sibley guide from my backpack in the back seat and
immediately looked to see how the size of a MIKI compares to that of a
pigeon... And incredibly, my description was almost spot-on!  I was quite
excited and now convinced that I had just seen my first Mississippi Kite!
And not only that, but this bird was number 400 on my life list! What a
bird to get for my milestone sighting!

Also, i can give you the exact, pinpoint location of the bird because it
flushed from the trees right before a bridge that passed over the highway.
After looking on google maps, i found the only bridge that is just before
exit 164, and the street that is on that bridge is "Deerfield Rd/ Co Hwy 5"
in South Zanesville, OH.

Sorry for such a long email, but I just wanted to be as thorough as I could
regarding this sighting.

I hope everyone has a great weekend!

Best Regards,

David Bernstein
Boston, MA
DavidBBernstein at gmail

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