[CT Birds] Eagle(s)ville, Storrs

[Chris Elphick]

Given the nice weather I took a quick half hour walk around the neighbourhood at lunch time and it turned out to be a good idea.  Right outside my house I had a pair of ravens and a red-tailed hawk.  At Eagleville Pond there were 4 hooded mergansers, 7 common mergansers, the resident pair of mute swans, and an immature bald eagle sitting on the ice.  

As I was leaving the lake, I noticed a pair of red-shouldered hawks displaying, one of which peeled off after a couple of minutes.  As I tracked it, I noticed two much larger raptors, one of which the red-shoulder made a bee-line for.  As the red-shoulder approached, I realized that the larger birds were two eagles.  Of course, I then back-tracked and discovered that the original eagle was still sitting on the ice.

Add to that the grackles, the drumming downy woodpecker, and the singing juncos, and spring is clearly sprung.
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>From Chris Elphick:
3/07 - Eagleville, Storrs -- common merganser (5 m, 2 f), hooded merganser (3 m, 1 f), bald eagle (3 imm), red-shouldered hawk (pair), common raven (pair)



Chris Elphick
Storrs, CT
elphick at sbcglobal.net