November 3 2019. Hendrie Valley, Burlington, ON. The chill of the morning is still in my bones as I sit down to write this. It’s a November day full of what November does best: cold blustery winds, ragged grey skies threatening rain or snow, and wind-tossed leaves. It’s the sort of day that promises little in the way of birds but which can deliver surprises, you just have to get out and look.
The first Sunday of November is the day our local naturalists’ club undertakes its annual Fall Bird Count. I joined an enthusiastic group charged with scouring local parklands and reporting all birds seen. We traipsed around an old quarry seeing little: the odd Song Sparrow, a group of Red–winged Blackbirds a couple of Blue Jays and not much else until, emerging from a treed path, we crossed an open grassy area and looked up at a large, very dark, bird turning low overhead.
My rapidly firing thought-process went something like this, “Golden Eagle!?, Possible, – good time of year. But no, maybe a Turkey Vulture. Think about it. No, not a TV, too big and wrong flight pattern. Then what? Bald Eagle? Maybe a juvenile? – No, could be, but not all black. And certainly not an adult Bald. What else could it be? Must be Golden Eagle – check long tail? Yes. Terminal band on tail? Too dark, can’t make one out. Flight pattern? Steady beats. Must be a Golden Eagle. Yep, I think so – for sure – probably.
We watched it riding the winds for a long time until it finally dropped out of sight below the treed skyline. Gathered in a group, we went through the ‘what-it-could-be’ and ‘what-it’s-not’ and all we were left with was Golden Eagle. I was about as certain as I could be.
Well, therein a cautionary tale. Much retrospection and scrutiny of photos later and we had to backtrack. It was young Bald Eagle.
A couple of our group were able to photograph it and I thank Ted Buck for these four wonderful shots of our bird. Ted and others took photos against a bright white sky and until any of us could apply computer scrutiny it looked like a Golden Eagle, and who wouldn’t want it to be just that?
It reminds me of a scrap of introspective wisdom from a senior and much-respected Michigan birder who, after a long, mosquito-plagued, but eventually successful struggle to glimpse a known-to-be-there Prothonotary Warbler, commented wryly, “Piece of cake this game.”