Missing pics and a Black Hawk

Arrggghh! I've misplaced the flash disk from my little point-n'-shoot camera. Have torn up my desk, where I put the flash disk to keep it 'safe', but cannot find the disk anywhere. Oh well. Am sure this isn't the first time this will happen, but it means no pictures of Montezuma's Castle National Monument, Montezuma's Well and worse - no photos of my first visit to Grand Canyon National Park. Yes, all quite disappointing - for me - but I can include one last video and a quick tale told in genuine false Claire Time. Here we go!

Ahem! "Yesterday" I left Tucson, and headed up to central Arizona with the goal of visiting a river or two, where I believed I might locate my next 'lifer' bird, the Common Black Hawk. As I drove along the highway I spotted a sign for Montezuma's Castle National Monument. It was the first adobe dwelling site I've ever visited and I loved it. While there I chanced to bug a ranger on where I could find a Common Black Hawk and the ranger told me he recently saw a Common Black Hawk at Montezuma's well, only one freeway exit north.

I visited Montezuma's Well where I found another ranger, a lady ranger who marched me right over to the active nest of a Common Black Hawk. HURRAH! The nest was far enough off I couldn't see the bird with my binoculars, so I had to get out my spotting scope. Below you can see the hawk in this digiscoped video I got with my iPhone.

The entire top of the nest is the hawk. If you wonder why I bother to include this video it is because, I at least, can see the hawk's head by noting the bird's yellow bill, which appears and disappears as the bird bobs its head about, just left of center. In the still shots there is no way to puzzle out what is the bird's head from its nest.