Staten Island’s wharf rats have met their match. A juvenile Swainson’s Hawk (Buteo swainsoni) was spotted Sunday on Front Street by the S.I. Railroad’s big car maintenance building. The bird was in the same area Monday, when I took these pictures.
Those long primaries! (They edge just past the tail.)
Swainson’s are a fairly common raptor west of the Mississippi. From there they typically migrate to Argentina for the non-breeding season. So this one is way off base. There have only been a handful of New York state sightings over the years.
(If you’re on ebird, you can scan the rare bird alerts to be updated, more or less, on the bird’s presence.)
Backyard and Beyond 
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