I was just walking down the street when I looked up and suddenly saw a very large raptor soaring above.  I couldn’t believe my eyes when I observed (sadly without bins) mottled white in the base of the tail feathers/undertail coverts and white windows in base of the primary feathers.  Although it was soaring, I could make out these features and the large head and bill.  It was making lazy circles, flapping just a few times, heading eastwards from Main St. and Drexel Ave. by the Capitol University campus (this is not too far from Alum Creek).  Being that its in a suburban neighborhood, I wouldn’t dream of bringing it to the listserv if I hadn't seen these identifying characteristics.  It was unmistakably a raptor, but I have some amount of reasonable doubt that it could have been a juvenile bald eagle (with bins I definitely could have seen the bill color).  Characteristically, no one else was around to see it with me and passersby didn’t care or thought I was a nutcase.

-Adam Beeler
Columbus, OH
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