SHARP SHINNED HAWK

[pforde]

I was renting a cottage on Mills Lake near Parry Sound last week. Wifey and I heard a strange bird cry in the trees that was quite persistent.
   I found the bird sitting high atop a dead tree trunk nearby. Our binoculars brought it into focus for us and we saw that it was a small hawk of some sort. Didn't know what type.
  Its cry was quite loud and we heard it amongst the tall pines and hardwoods all week. Only during the day, but often at dusk. We saw it swooping in and out of the tree branches at times, but the thing swooped so fast that identification was ...well, a challenge.
  We went to Kilbear Provincial Park and talked to people there. They had a computerized game product that helped us identify it as a Sharp Shinned Hawk. The audio was identical to what we had been hearing all week. The visual identification in the books was an approximate.

[Misty01]

hey pforde, that's cool that you were able to id the bird by the computerised game, was it the bird application from the iphone or a different product?

[pforde]

It was not an Iphone product.
Sorry I didn't get a good look at the brand name. My wife handled the product and used their stylus and poked at a number of their different bird name profiles to get the sounds. The person behind the counter a number of versions. One version of this was something that could fit in your pocket, but had simple birds like Blue Jays and such on it, while the one we used was Hawk specific and had a variety of examples on it and was a bit bigger. It was a flat board of course, making it easy to carry.
  A bit expensive for our needs as I recall. But still, quite versatile and very cool.    
I wouldn't be surprised to see it available at the different provincial park stores in Ontario.

Paul