Goshawks, Bald Eagle Fledglings, and Young Peepers

Northern Goshawk, (Accipiter gentilis)
Photograph by David Brinker

Earlier this week I read in the Washington Post that someone shot Maryland's only nesting Goshawk (Accipiter gentilis) in nearby Garrett County.  Way back in 1984, I got to care for a Goshawk for the Pennsylvania Game Commission, which used the accipiter for sting operations targeting illegal trades among falconers.  The penalties for all these crimes, in the uncommon occurance when someone is convicted, always seems trivial.

But today (Saturday) I found a very cute little female Wheaton Terrier running loose near Indian Rock in northern Hampshire County.  I hollered around the fisherman's access, but then took her home just a few miles to our farm.  We learned the owner was the visiting daughter of our friend, and when I returned her a little later, I heard the Bald eagles that nest there chirping on the slope above Indian Rock.  These eagles, both the adults and the immature birds, fly up and down the South Branch from the mouth to Milleson's Mill and have nested there for as long as I've lived here.

There are few things that leave an impression like that of an eagle flying by as you're sitting by the river.

===

Yesterday, Anna Hjelmroos took me and Heather Eves on a field trip detailing her Masters degree capstone project at Wolf Trap Farm Park near Vienna, Virginia.  There we saw young Spring Peepers (Pseudacris crucifer), which were so prevalent we worried about squashing them as we walked.  They're so small you'd thing they were spiders or insects of some kind.  They are fast, but Anna caught a few and i got a photo. I've seen ticks larger than these little chorus frogs. We have thousands of peepers on our South Branch floodplain ponds, but I've never seen them this small.

Tiny young spring peepers

Later we followed Wolf Trap Run along the Farm Pond and came upon a cliff that was probably 20-25  meters high on a ridge that is probably less than 100 meters wide, clearly carved by the stream over time.  Another one of those surprises within our National Parks.

The cliffs along Wolf Trap Run