NEWAYGO COUNTY (WWJ) -- It’s the largest hawk known to North America — and it’s been spotted right here in Michigan.
Indeed, a group of Michigan bird watchers have become the envy of many avian enthusiasts for getting the opportunity to witness this rare and spectacular bird of prey -- known as the "Megahawk" -- this week.
The female Ferruginous Hawk was discovered in Newaygo County on the state’s west side earlier this week due in part to a tracking device that had been attached to the bird by scientists at Birds Canada after it was found injured last month in Ontario.
Rehabbed by caretakers and dubbed Erieau, the hawk was released back into the wild on May 20, but her tracking device only displayed her movements by county, not exact location, according to MLive.com.
That’s where some savvy Michigan birdwatchers came in.
Caleb Putnam — a Kent County native who co-founded the west Michigan media company Real Birding — made an educated guess that Erieau might be on her way to the Old Rice Lake Muck Flats, as the tree-less, wide-open landscape might remind her of her natural habitat in western North America.
Putnam headed out to the four-mile stretch of fields on Monday, and he was in luck -- Erieau was there in all her glory, and easily observed as she perched upon a telephone pole.
Real Birding then put the word out among the local bird-watching community, and many birders flocked to the location to catch a glimpse.
"With birding, you never know what you're going to find," Caleb Putnam said in a live video on Facebook alongside Real Birding co-founder, Will Keller. "If we hadn't had a transmitter on this bird, nobody would have come out here looking and been thinking there was this weird vagrant in the summertime in some random spot. And that's the beauty of birding."
Check out the video from Real Birding and learn more about the Ferruginous Hawk here.
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