OHIO-BIRDS Archives

September 2012

OHIO-BIRDS@LISTSERV.MIAMIOH.EDU

Options: Use Monospaced Font
Show Text Part by Default
Show All Mail Headers

Message: [<< First] [< Prev] [Next >] [Last >>]
Topic: [<< First] [< Prev] [Next >] [Last >>]
Author: [<< First] [< Prev] [Next >] [Last >>]

Print Reply
Subject:
From:
Robert Evans <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Robert Evans <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Thu, 6 Sep 2012 19:56:08 -0400
Content-Type:
text/plain
Parts/Attachments:
text/plain (49 lines)
This morning I was attending a meeting in Cambridge, Ohio. I spent half the
day over there, but I called my wife Jane at one point to report the
progress of my day. She said she took the shortcut during the morning walk,
meaning she traveled a slightly different (and shorter) route through our
forested ravines. Then she said the woods gave me a "present."

In her eyes, I am prone to collecting dead birds. Sometimes these are house
finches drowned in our sheep watering troughs, sometimes window kills. I
store the common, ordinary, clean, dead birds in our auxiliary freezer and
donate them periodically to wildlife rehab facilities, if I am certain of
their "clean" status. Sometimes a more uncommon and interesting specimen
goes toward some educational purpose, which leads me to my next questions.

My "present" this morning was a seemingly uninjured, juvenile sharp-shinned
hawk, in externally splendid condition, and freshly dead. Could it have
been a West Nile case? And should I have it tested? If not it will make an
excellent education specimen. It has all the archtypical attributes:
squared off tail, small head, streaked breast. It weighs 92.3 grams,
significantly lower than the 140 gram "standard" listed in Sibley. Is it
perhaps male, and thus smaller? If the concensus opinion is that the
specimen is "OK" I will likely donate it to Ohio Wildlife Education and the
William C. Kraner Nature Center in Licking County near here. But should I
have it tested? And where?

Thanks for any help!

This is only the second confirmed sharp-shinned hawk for this property. I
find it ironic that my non-birder wife Jane gets the credit for both. She
took a photo of the other one, wondering what it was, a couple years ago
while I was away on business in California. Maybe one of these days I will
see a live one here myself. Fascinating animals!

I have seen many Cooper's hawks here, but never a sharpie, with the
exception of the current specimen and Jane's 2010 photo.

Bob Evans
Geologist, etc.
Hopewell Township, Muskingum County

______________________________________________________________________

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]

ATOM RSS1 RSS2