It not the bird 🦅 it’s the experience.
It’s why I bird not for just the tick mark.
Don MaasMesa, AZMaricopa County
“If you do not take an interest in the affairs of your government then you are doomed to live under the rules of fools. Plato“You can ignore reality, but you cannot ignore the consequences of reality.”
Don & Shirley MaasThe Maas’s have migrated to the Valley of the Sun in Mesa, AZ from Choctaw, Ok for the winter.
On Monday, December 15, 2025, 4:28 PM, Matt Shurtliff via groups.io <mmscornhusker...> wrote:
I didn’t even bring it. Partner had one.
The hawk … was most likely Swainson’s. But not 100% sure.
Matt Shurtliff
<mmscornhusker...>
On Mon, Dec 15, 2025 at 5:26 PM greg hartel via groups.io <gregjhartel...> wrote:
Where was your camera?
On Mon, Dec 15, 2025 at 12:56 PM Matt Shurtliff via groups.io <mmscornhusker...> wrote:
I had the incredible thrill of having my 300th Nebraska birdbe the Crested caracara. I think many of us like listing, and memorableexperiences, and good birding partners, and milestones. I had all of that tiedtogether in this one sighting.
So ... Tobin hooks me up with the Discord chat to follow thelatest on the Caracara. I can't go until Saturday work wise. In the chat Em islooking to hitchhike along if anyone is passing through Lancaster County. So,we connect. We agree if there's a sighting Friday it's on. There is, so I pickEm up at 6 am in Lincoln.
The conversation along the drive was wide, varied, and epic.I'll just tell you, Em does a great Richard Burton from Who's Afraid ofVirginia Woolf.
It's getting icy on this drive. There's a time where we'reconsidering bailing. At a gas station we talk to a group of farmers on theirmorning "solve the world's problems" coffee meeting. I ask about theroads. One assured me the route would be ok. I took that as a sign. :)
Eventually we get to Keith County, cross the dam, and headdown 92. At 20 miles out, we lock in. No more wide and variedconversation. All we're talking about is how we find this bird. We havethe "your eyes on the road, mine on the birds" conversation.
We get lucky. We see the bird immediately. But ... it'sflying about 300 yards away, just in front of the beige building on the NWcorner of 92 and 207. We get a 20-ish second view as it crosses 92 to theNorth, with trees impeding view.
So, there we sit, and ID a silhouette of a large flying raptorwhere we can't see the famous face/head characteristics. We can see a flash of light/darkcolor, and we can see wing shape, wing style, tail angle, and flight characteristics.We start ruling out possibles. Buteos were out. Bald eagle - out. Thelast DQ was Harrier. We asked each other if we were certain, and we agreed.
You wouldn't know this about me, but the thing Ienjoy the most is what I call "good birding" - when you need to go deep into your toollbox to ID a bird. You don't have the visual you need for thefull set of field marks. You don't have vocalization. You have things likesilhouette, posture, wing appearance, etc. I'm not as good as many here in that process, but it's my favorite thing about birding.
So, I got Nebraska #300, collaborating with a fine youngbirder who's going to become better than me if they haven't already, by ID-ingmy favorite way. The only way it could be better is if JRR Tolkien and TomOsborne were with us. I don't know if Em caught this or not, but I had tearswell up at the whole thing.
Less than 5 minutes after we agree, there's a flash fromEbird, Mark Brogie reported it. So we get the Appeal to Authority :).
Em is on the phone telling their mother, who is justlearning birding, and is chasing a Prothonotary warbler in California atthe same time. I told Em to tell their mother that their partner says that theyare a great birder.
We try and relocate the CC. We eventually end up with a30-minute spotting scope view about 200 yards out in the same field, as it toreapart and ate a Canada goose. You could see blood on the goose'sfeather, and pieces of flesh. That's how good the scope view was. The bestpicture we have is old school digiscoping - Em shooting a phone picture throughthe scope eyepiece. That's in the checklist.
Em later shares that picture to the Discord chat. With acaption that says "A digiscopic observation of rapid caracarogenicmetamorphosis in Branta canadensis." We worked on thata bit on the drive home. Em provided "rapid." I served up"caracara-induced," then Em improved it. You get the idea.
Other cool things happened. In addition to 300, we sawKestrel, Merlin, and Prairie falcon. So, we're in the club of those who havehad a Nebraska 4-falcon day without a Peregrine. Em wanted to see a Townsend'ssolitaire while we were there. Tobin recommended Lake Ogallala, and I went straight toa tree grove where I'd seen one years before. Tick. At the Caracara field, a Merlinblasted over a mass of Starlings on the ground, causing Starling Mayhem. It wasjust that kind of day.
And ... a mysterious Buteo that flew directly overhead at 20feet. We watched through binoculars as it approached, flew straight over our heads, andflew away. Neither of us had a camera. We couldn't tell what it was. And wetried hard, went through Sibleys. We left it at the genus level on the checklist.
There's even more to the story, but that's probably enough.
