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egan months ago in texas went silent jumped to biddeford pool in maine went silent again and then continued in a city park in downtown portland maine and yesterday the saga came to an end as the great black hawk was entered into a wildlife rehab center after being found on the ground injured i was lucky enough to see maine s famous visitor on december 30 2018 i had traveled up to southern maine for a short unrelated trip but i was only 20 minutes away from portland so of course i couldn t pass up the opportunity to see it after a first attempted failed on december 29 i along with my birding friends and about 30 other birders finally saw the hawk on december 30 at deering oaks park in downtown portland it was an easy find on that day we simply pulled up to the park parked the car and walked up to the mass of people with binoculars and cameras who were all staring quietly at the hawk who was perched in a spruce tree by the park s entrance range map courtesy of avibirds and natureserve why all the hubbub for this specific hawk though the great black hawk is a tropical species of raptor found throughout central and northern south america as well as throughout central america up to southern chihuahua and tamaulipas in mexico up until the specific great black hawk in question showed up in texas there was no accepted record of this species from the united states simply put a great black hawk shouldn t be in the us let alone in maine of all places several great black hawks had been observed over the past few decades in a small area of southern florida but those records were never accepted by the rare bird committee of the state to count in the official records it has to be nearly certain that the rare bird in question is a wild individual that showed up into the area on its own volition great black hawks are known to be kept in captivity and it could never be pinned down whether the florida one s were wild vagrants or released escaped captive individuals to dive into that quagmire of a story which spans decades check out this detailed write up on the tropical audubon society s page the timeline the location of south padre island texas map courtesy of google maps the saga of the texas maine great black hawk began back on april 24 2018 when a birder photographed a juvenile black hawk species on south padre island texas it was initially uncertain whether it was a common black hawk a species whose range extends into southern arizona and new mexico but have been recorded from southern texas as well or a great black hawk the id was quickly confirmed as a great black hawk as the photos were circulated on facebook and elsewhere a few other birders saw it within the hour or so it was discovered but the bird quickly disappeared despite birders searching the island it couldn t be relocated later that day nor in the upcoming days it appeared it was a one day wonder something that often happens with rare birds the great black hawk was a species that had been long predicted to show up in the southern us although it is a sedentary species across its normal range the very northern tip of its range is only a mere 200 miles from the us border so tantalizing close that many birders assumed one would eventually show up in texas when this one showed up near the texas mexico border near the famous birding hotspot of brownsville at that it made logical sense but what was about to happen made absolutely no sense the location of biddeford pool maine where the great black hawk first showed up in maine map courtesy of google maps several months later on august 6th 2018 another birder found a juvenile great black hawk in biddeford pool maine of course this was an absolutely mind blowing observation of what would be a mega mega rarity so mind blowing that the report was initially met with skepticism by some birders not only had the first apparently wild great black hawk in the us shown up in texas only earlier that year which had been expected for some time but now one had shown up in maine maine it just seemed implausible a completely hilarious debate ensued in the aba rare bird alert facebook page post where people began trying to identify the plants in the background of the photo posted to see whether those plants were plants native to maine or whether the photo had been taken in the tropics and passed as maine people were also trying to match up the photos with google maps street view in the end it was confirmed that a great black hawk was indeed in the biddeford pool area of maine then the discussion moved to the next logical question was this juvenile great black hawk the same juvenile great black hawk that had shown up in texas back in april it simultaneously seemed both a ridiculous idea and a totally believable idea then a close inspection of the markings on the undersides of the wings confirmed that the texas and maine individuals were in fact the same juvenile great black hawk not only had this great black hawk shown up 200 miles north of the northern tip of this species range but it then showed up around 1 970 miles further north in maine over 3 months later of course this raised the question of just where it had been during those 3 months it had escaped detection that entire time and no one knew and no one still knows nor will ever know whether it had booked it straight to maine or whether it had meandered to maine and hung around in various other states for days if not weeks at a time despite the question of the time in between it was in biddeford pool now well it was there for a few days at least it disappeared on august 9 where it had seemingly disappeared for good the location of deering oaks park in portland maine this is where the great black hawk was based for several months map courtesy of google maps and just when the story couldn t get any stranger the great black hawk appeared 81 days later in downtown portland maine only 18 miles to the north of where it had last been seen in biddeford pool the initial report came from the eastern promenade but the great black hawk soon began making its home in deering oaks park deering oaks park is a city park complete with a large pond baseball fields tennis courts some trees and perhaps most importantly a large population of very fat eastern gray squirrels the great black hawk hung around deering oaks park for the next several months proving that a tropical bird of prey could apparently make it in through the maine autumn and the first parts of a maine winter but then a large snowstorm hit new england on january 19th and 20th during the early hours of sunday january 20th a birder found the great black hawk on the ground apparently injured it was quickly captured and brought to the home of a concerned portland resident who made some calls that s when avian haven a wild bird rehabilitation center came in volunteers made the treacherous trip in the poor weather conditions to pick up the injured hawk and transport it to the avian haven initial inspections found that the great black hawk had frostbite on its feet along with some other minor problems the hawk is now in stable condition as avian haven just reported on their facebook page and it will begin its hopefully successful journey toward recovery what will ultimately become of the bird if it successfully recovers is still unknown but as the avian haven pointed out that question will get answered if and when the time comes update on january 31st 2019 avian haven reported that the decision had been made to euthanize the great black hawk the frostbite damage was just too bad the feet had begun to decompose and the behavior of the hawk had changed from lively to listless kudos to avian haven for trying all that could be done and for ultimately making the hard yet appropriate decision to euthanize such a well known individual chasers listers and rare birds the crowd of birders on december 30 2018 when i saw the hawk the great black hawk was seen regularly in portland from october 29 2018 to january 20 2019 because of how rare it was and because of how consistently it could be found thousands of birders ventured to deering oaks park in portland a fantastic city by the way the great black hawk became quite a celebrity with it receiving both local and regional news coverage on the day that i visited over 30 birders were watching the hawk and that was on a cold day in december if you re not in the birding community you might be thinking how crazy all this is and you would be right birders can be crazy while not all birders are like this many take listing or keeping track of all the species you see seriously it s the drive to see as many birds as possible that underpins this listing hobby some of that drive can be due to competitive reasons or even simply due to an urge to see the biodiversity of birds as best as one can or a combination of both a subset of listers can be considered chasers which are birders who will go out of their way to see a rare bird that shows up somewhere chasing can be as much as chasing a rare bird that shows up in your home county as i did when a black legged kittiwake showed up in pickaway county ohio to getting on a plane and flying across the country several chasers i know in ohio made the drive all the way to portland a 13 hour drive just for the chance to see the great black hawk in person one of the interesting side effects of birders chasing a rare bird is the economic impact they bring to the local communities birders came from as far away as arizona and each person undoubtedly spent at least 1 in the portland area people would have bought hotel or airbnb rooms got lunch or dinner at local restaurants spent time at local shops and the likes birding tourism can have huge impacts on local communities the biggest week in american birding held in northwestern ohio had a 40 million dollar economic impact in the local community last year one study looking at the economic impact of birders chasing a rare bird in this case a black backed oriole which showed up in pennsylvania in 2017 found that the nearly 2 000 birders who went to see the rare bird brought in an extra 223 000 to the community over the course of 67 days the portland great black hawk will no doubt have a similar impact if not greater why was it there why did this juvenile great black hawk do what it did why did it leave its normal range and venture not only to texas but 2 000 miles north to maine there are several possible explanations but we will never know the answer for certain birds regularly show up in places outside of their normal range some species do so more than others due to both biological and meteorological circumstances sometimes weather events like hurricanes strong winds or storm fronts will push birds into new places sometimes young birds will disperse outside of their range either due to naivety or an attempt to find a new place to live such as pioneering or colonizing attempts sometimes the internal navigational system of birds will be messed up making a bird migrate north instead of south or vice versa sometimes birds accidentally go a little too far when migrating and end up further north or south of where they should be recent data suggests that insecticides might even be disrupting the ability of birds to navigate which might be causing some birds to show up in unusual places on accident there s a lot of reasons that can cause birds to show up in unusual places and oftentimes it s very hard to pinpoint exactly which factor was at play it s especially difficult regarding the great black hawk the great black hawk is a species that doesn t migrate so migratory overshooting and misdirection don t make sense the maine individual is a juvenile and so it dispersing 200 miles north to texas makes some sense but at the same time it doesn t make sense for a juvenile to disperse 2 000 miles north to maine maine also has a history of southern species showing up so this suggests some kind of weather related events possibly at play but there s no specific storm or front we can attribute to its arrival from what i ve seen there s no obvious conclusion to be made about why this great black hawk ventured this far north leah mould left your blogger kyle brooks center and olivia brooks right in deering oaks park portland after seeing the great black hawk you can actually see the great black hawk in this photo it s the brown blob in the spruce tree above the person in the purple coat that s facing away photo credit miranda wheeler although the great black hawk saga has come to a sad end this crazy traveling hawk has impacted thousands of people around the us and the local community as well it s not the first time something like this has happened as birders know all too well and it won t be the last what species will be the next big star and where will it show up only time will tell posted by kyle brooks at 5 52 pm 49 comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labels nature ohio photography parks birding birds birds of prey maine rare birds location portland me usa sunday january 13 2019 a selection of photos from wayne national forest i m still alive after my last post on august 11 2018 this blog fell silent for over 5 months back in late june of this year i began a new job as a photojournalist resource assistant for the usda forest service at wayne national forest ohio s only national forest most of my days since then have been filled with editing photos writing and editing that writing subsequently i quickly found myself not having the drive to do the same exact thing for this blog when coming home from work the last thing i wanted to do was to continue doing the exact same things i had been doing all day so i put this blog on the back burner with the new year now in swing and the government shutdown currently still going strong i decided to work on some new posts this re entry post is simply a selection of photos i ve taken while on the job that i really like wayne national forest is around 244 000 acres in size with much of that being a patchwork of relatively small areas most of those patches lack any sort of developed recreation infrastructure like hiking trails parking lots campgrounds and so on however there are some developed areas and probably the most visited of those areas is lake vesuvius in the ironton unit lake vesuvius is a man made reservoir and is often used for boating fishing and swimming this fisherman was out on the lake just after sunrise heading toward his fishing spot every photographer has a list of subjects they want to take a photo of even if there are thousands and thousands of similar photos despite the cliché there s something about having your own version of an oft photographed subject or trope that is appealing the photograph above is one such case despite the absolutely overwhelming number of such similar photos out there just check out the google search results for photo of dried mud ...
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