Common Black Hawk seen again in Canon City

After several days with no sign of the Common Black Hawk (possibly related to windy then rainy weather and/or behavior changes related to all the birders watching for this very shy hawk), it was seen this morning sitting on the snag on which it was seen week before last. However, as soon as the birder who first spotted it while driving across the MacKenzie bridge could park his car, walk back to the bridge and get the bird in his binoculars it flew down then into the trees. I came along about 5-10 minutes later but the bird was not seen again this morning.

As I suspected that the bird's behavior was changed by all the birders (almost 60, some coming up to 4 times to look for it) in the area, I went to the bridge just after 6 pm (later than it had been seen when it was being seen in time clusters) and saw it. I was delighted to be able to view it for 45 minutes until just after 7 pm when it became too dark to see.

Note the blackish plumage, wide white tail band visible in undertail, thin white terminal tail band, yellow cere (the photo doesn't do justice to the dark yellow cere I saw on the bird), and long yellow legs (again, not as dark yellow in the photo as in my spotting scope). The dark tip on the bill is visible in both photos. Though the eyes are not visible, it is apparent (knowing that the birds eyes were open) that the eyes are dark.

This is one of the photos I took of the hawk. These are taken with my 12X digital camera then cropped to enlarge photo. This photo is not edited in any other manner or enhanced with photo software. I do have more photos that I need to crop that I will post later.

SeEtta