On Christmas Eve, I birded at Moraine View State Park, while Carrie was working, hoping to find a Northern Shrike. Unfortunately, I did not see any shrikes, but I did find this beautiful juvenile light morph Rough-legged Hawk, hunting the field North of 900 N Rd. at the park entrance.
Then yesterday late in the morning and in the afternoon, I went driving around near Downs, IL to look for raptors, and I was not disappointed. Just along a few roads North and East of Downs, I had 12 Red-tailed Hawks, 4 Rough-legged Hawks, 2 Northern Harriers, and 4 American Kestrels. This area was recommended to me by Shanin Abreu last year, and in the last year it has also produced Red-shouldered Hawk, Barred Owl, Osprey, and a host of other birds including Northern Bobwhite, Northern Mockingbird, and a variety of waterfowl and songbirds. Many of the raptors I saw were along E 800 North Rd. just East of Downs. One field at the West end of this road produced two Rough-legged Hawks, two harriers, and two to three Red-tails.
I had started out birding at Moraine View State Park earlier in the morning. So when I left Moraine View, I drove West from the park on 800 N Rd. As I approached Downs, I saw a couple of kestrels on the power lines. Then I saw two Rough-legged Hawks flying in the field on the North side of the road just East of Downs. I identified the first bird through my binoculars as an adult light morph male before it flew into the tree line along the East edge of the field, and I was able to take this photo of it later in the day.
After observing the first bird, I turned my attention to the second, which had landed on top of a telephone pole on the South side of the road and was clearly an adult dark morph. This individual put on quite a show for me hunting in hovering mode close to the road in the afore mentioned field, hunting from a tree in front of the house on the West end of the field, and then returning to hovering mode, and then back to the tree again. Abreu said she had seen a dark morph hanging around at this same spot on several occasions last Winter. Perhaps the same bird has returned to the same spot.
At one point, while it was sitting in the tree, it was mobbed by a Red-tailed Hawk. There were actually three or four Red-tails in the area, sitting in the tree lines North and East of the fields North of 800 N Rd. After observing the dark morph for a long while, I drove the roads North of Downs and found several more Red-tails, another kestrel, and this juvenile light morph Rough-legged in a field East of 2100 East Rd. The white patches on the upper wing is differentiates juvenile from adult female.
As I drove Northwest away from Downs on highway 150, I saw a fourth Rough-legged--an adult female light morph. This individual had no white patches on the upperwing, and appeared buffy underneath, differentiating adult female from juvenile.
I did not see the harriers until late in the afternoon when Shanin Abreu texted me that she had seen a couple of harriers and a Sharp-shinned Hawk in the area. When I went back to the area, the two Rough-leggeds I had seen earlier in the field along 800 N Rd. were still present and there were two harriers hunting in the same field at the same time. There was also a kestrel on the power line on the South side of the road. The female harrier mobbed the adult light morph male Rough-legged. Then I saw the male and female harriers hunting in formation together. The male was flying high above the female as she soared just above ground. The dark morph Rough-legged, which had been sitting in the field close to the road for a long time started hunting again and seemed to move further back into the field to get away from the harriers; though, I could not tell whether they were intentionally harassing the dark morph.
