Sharp Shinned Day

Today was a fall festival at Hawk Ridge which is a ten minute drive straight east from my house. I went up there for a hike and I bought a couple of raffle tickets. The volunteers looked like they were having fun so I mentioned I did ask to volunteer but hadn't heard back. Maybe my email is in a cyber void. I reached out again today so we will see. I think it's a great place to volunteer especially today when the weather was warm and sunny.

A wind from the south made for muggy air but a southern breeze forces raptors to fly low to the ground. Look at this sharp shin hawk right above my head. I drew a purple box around it because it is harder to see in the picture than it was in real time standing there on the ridge with 100 other people. I saw cars from Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, New York and Texas as I walked back to my car.

Here is the hawk cropped closer. Sharp shinned hawks have a long tail because they fly through the thick forests and need the tail as a rudder to take sharp turns. Their wings beats have a pattern. The pattern is flap, flap, flap, glide. These hawks are smaller than most hawks, slightly larger than a robin, and they eat mostly song birds. Sharp Shinned hawks don't stay here for the winter. Some stay all year in southern Iowa but others migrate to central America or South America.