Late this morning \u2013 another beautiful, sunny, colorful fall day \u2013 a Red-tailed Hawk, a Black Vulture and a Turkey Vulture all soared high in a big, deep-blue sky with not a cloud in sight. Both Vultures flew fast, in a way that looked sweeping, sailing and exuberant, as if they loved the speed of the wind, like daredevil skiers. The Black Vulture, its white wing-tips flashing when they caught the sun, and its wings held out flat and steady, flew higher and more aggressively, and soon was little more than a speck in the blue. The Turkey Vulture tilted crazily and flew in wide circles, sliding down the wind in a way that almost looked out of control at times, though I\u2019m sure it was not. The Hawk flew more deliberately, looking more powerful and more in control \u2013 a master of the wind, rather than abandoning itself to the wind so freely as the Vultures seem to do. <\/p>\n
At one point as I watched, the Red-tailed Hawk circled around and turned into the wind and hung<\/span> in the air, almost motionless, as if suspended, moving only its wings and tail slightly. Then it turned and sailed away downwind. In a minute or two, it reappeared and did this again, hanging suspended almost directly above me for several seconds. It was impressive to watch, and I almost could not believe the way it seemed to hold itself so still in the sky. Later, I found this passage in Hawks in Flight<\/span> (1988), by Pete Dunne, David Sibley and Clay Sutton: \u201cOnly the Red-tailed and Ferruginous hawks are capable of kiting \u2013 holding themselves immobile into the wind on set wings like a kite tugging against a string. Any bird that loses its forward momentum and holds fast over a spot east of Missouri may with virtual certainty be identified as a Red-tailed Hawk.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Late this morning \u2013 another beautiful, sunny, colorful fall day \u2013 a Red-tailed Hawk, a Black Vulture and a Turkey Vulture all soared high in a big, deep-blue sky with not a cloud in sight. Both Vultures flew fast, in a way that looked sweeping, sailing and exuberant, as if they loved the speed of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=220"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}