Hi All,
I often travel through Durham Region along Rossland Road between Whitby and Ajax and last Fall I started noticing several birds of prey along the corridor between about Cochrane Road and Salem. I see them perched in trees, flying over head, and even on mailboxes etc. Last week as I drove through on Tuesday morning, I saw a huge bird of prey jump and fly up out of the tall grass beside the new housing development before Salem Road! I'm wondering if anyone else has seen these, or if this is known as a big bird of prey area? It has quickly become my favorite stretch of road in all of the GTA for how often I see them! Several times now I have tried to pull over into driveways along that stretch to watch them and get a better look but they don't hang around if they think they're being watched! I think one that I have seen fairly often is a Red Tailed Hawk (I've seen those at a local zoo, so I'm pretty confident about that one), but the others, I'm not sure about. I did manage to get a crappy crappy photo in the springtime, and somoene suggested it might be a cooper's hawk?
I know you can't say for sure without the photos... so I'm posting it I'm sorry it sucks! I'll keep trying for better ones! Pls let me know what you think of that as a birding area, and what you think these might be.
I don't believe this is a Red Tail - it doesn't look like the one I saw in captivity (or am I wrong?!). This was taken in May 2012.
Name This Bird Of Prey Pls by
Fire0725, on Flickr
Again, sorry for crappy quality - I only had a really lousy, slow lens at the time when I saw them! Now I have a better one, with a decent telephoto, so hopefully I can get better photos soon!
Thanks in advance!
