The Gray Ghost

Over sixty years ago I spent most of a summer on a lake in New York’s Adirondack Mountains. The place we stayed was six miles from the nearest village and accessible only by boat. The boat we usually used was a 25-30 foot long work boat named “The Gray Ghost”. Whenever we went to town to get supplies, including 55-gallon drums of diesel fuel to run the generator that supplied us with electricity, or went somewhere for a day of surveying the surrounding forest it was on the Gray Ghost.

But that’s not the gray ghost that’s the subject of this post. Our topic here is another gray ghost, the male northern harrier. “Gray ghost” is the name commonly used by birders for adult male harriers since the predominant color of their backs and upper wings is a beautiful gray (female and juvenile harriers are predominately tan and brown).

Harriers are uncommon to rare during the breeding season in northcentral Pennsylvania, but are much more common in the winter and during migration. Here are some photos of a gray ghost hunting over a hayfield –

 

Harriers have lost much of their habitat as wetlands have been drained and development has converted grasslands to other uses – manicured lawns, parking lots, factories and big-box stores.