Photo Study Of An Adult Male Northern Harrier (The Gray Ghost) At Oberly WMA Today

The Northern Harrier (Circus cyaneus) is an 18 inch, long-winged, long-tailed hawk of open grasslands and marshes. The Northern Harrier (formerly known as the Marsh Hawk) forages by flying slowly low above the ground looking for small rodents. It is one of the few raptors in which the sexes look quite different. The male is white below with a light gray back and hood and the female is mottled in browns. At the Oberly WMA in Alpha, New Jersey, I  have seen as many as 12 different Harriers (eight or nine adult females, two mottled brown, orange breasted 1st Year birds and one adult  male, Gray  Ghost) coming back to roost in the high grasses in the evening.

  
A Diving Gray Ghost At Oberly WMA                                                                                       A Diving Northern Harrier Adult Female At Bombay Hook NWR

Today, I was pleasantly surprised by an adult male who came in about forty feet from me and gave a dazzling aerobatic display for about four minutes. This was, fortunately, enough time for me to be able to  take all the photos below.

 
The Gray Ghost Flies By At Oberly Today

Please click on either the thumbnails or the captions to see a larger image...thanks!

 © Howard B. Eskin 2010                         Please email your comments to hbeskin@voicenet.com         Please click here to go back to Bird Webpage Index