White Wing

Today, Nov. 26, 2017, for the first time in months, we saw White Wing, the mostly white Red-tailed Hawk with a lovely red tail that hangs out in the Grand Ronde area, west of Grand Ronde Rd and north of the Salmon River Hwy (Hwy 18). It seems to hunt along the power lines there. It was raining today and my camera turned the raindrops white.

Nov. 26, 2017

I thought I'd try to find past photos of White Wing with dates and see if he (she?) has changed over the years. This will be a work in progress...

The first email I saved about this hawk was in March of 2005 but I did not say when we had first seen it. In April of 2006, Mary Ann Sohlstrom wrote to tell me about the leucistic Red-tail she and friends saw on the wire by the Nazarene Church in Grand Ronde. That has been a favorite spot for that hawk over the years.



On Aug. 8, 2007, I wrote this email:

Today I saw White Wing on a low evergreen pretty close to the

Nazarene Church in Grand Ronde. A bit farther away, on one of

the power line poles, was another Red-tailed Hawk. This was the

one Carol Karlen and Marilyn VanDyk spotted in the same location

yesterday and called to tell me about. It looks like a normal

red-tail from the front, but from the back, it is quite

different. It has a wide, white chevron, white eyebrow, and

white terminal tail band on a red tail. Pretty bird. It's 
an adult so I don't know if this is a White Wing parent,

sibling, or offspring.

I have saved no other emails but we have seen White Wing every year since, so it is at least 13 years old.

May 30, 2012

 October, 2012

November 2013

November 2017

February 2, 2018, White Wing was sitting in a distant tree. My photo is not good. Shortly after, it took off and was joined by a second red-tailed hawk. They soared together. I think White Wing has a mate! With luck we'll see them sitting side by side sometime so we know, by size, if White Wing is a male or female.

February 2018