Confusing ID-IntermediateMorphHarlan'sHawk
Post Note: I have been having some very productive discourse about this hawk with another Colorado birder, Christian. He believes, and makes excellent points, that this hawk may actually be the offspring of Harlan's morph and Western morph hawks.
He points out that there is an awful lot of red this hawk's tail. He further states that little is actually known about Harlan's Hawks as they breed far north where few people can observe them. I certainly have found this hawk educational both in my research into it's identity and in my dialogue with Christian. SeEtta
These are photos I took yesterday of a hawk I saw in Otero County, CO near Rocky Ford. I thought I had seen a light-morph Rough-legged Hawk, albeit an unusually early one for this area--it has a dark belly, streaked breast and the underside of the primaries is whitish. Though the head isn't pale, Ligouri notes that males have paler heads than females. In Hawks from Every Angle, Ligouri also notes that some females can "have extremely heavily marked underwing coverts."
In the field I didn't see the birds legs and feet. However I can enlarge the pics to view them and they are not feathered as would be the case with a Rough-legged Hawk. And there is this reddish caste to the whitish tail (which is darker in the distal area).
This bird does not have scapular lightness like most Red-tailed Hawks, but Harlan's Red-tailed Hawks are often more uniformly dark on top. But it is not the blackish color found on dark Harlan's. Ligouri in an Am Birding Assn article notes that Intermediate Harlan's upperparts are "Solid brownish-black; tends to lack mottling on upperwing coverts."
I was not very familiar with the Intermediate morph of Harlan's Hawk, but when I researched I found that matches this hawk including the facial markings that make the bird look like it is wearing goggles (seen best in top 2 pics but it may be necessary to double-click to enlarge them). It is a bit more brownish than what Ligouri describes but has most other field marks for this Intermediate morph. SeEtta
He points out that there is an awful lot of red this hawk's tail. He further states that little is actually known about Harlan's Hawks as they breed far north where few people can observe them. I certainly have found this hawk educational both in my research into it's identity and in my dialogue with Christian. SeEtta
These are photos I took yesterday of a hawk I saw in Otero County, CO near Rocky Ford. I thought I had seen a light-morph Rough-legged Hawk, albeit an unusually early one for this area--it has a dark belly, streaked breast and the underside of the primaries is whitish. Though the head isn't pale, Ligouri notes that males have paler heads than females. In Hawks from Every Angle, Ligouri also notes that some females can "have extremely heavily marked underwing coverts."
In the field I didn't see the birds legs and feet. However I can enlarge the pics to view them and they are not feathered as would be the case with a Rough-legged Hawk. And there is this reddish caste to the whitish tail (which is darker in the distal area).
This bird does not have scapular lightness like most Red-tailed Hawks, but Harlan's Red-tailed Hawks are often more uniformly dark on top. But it is not the blackish color found on dark Harlan's. Ligouri in an Am Birding Assn article notes that Intermediate Harlan's upperparts are "Solid brownish-black; tends to lack mottling on upperwing coverts."
I was not very familiar with the Intermediate morph of Harlan's Hawk, but when I researched I found that matches this hawk including the facial markings that make the bird look like it is wearing goggles (seen best in top 2 pics but it may be necessary to double-click to enlarge them). It is a bit more brownish than what Ligouri describes but has most other field marks for this Intermediate morph. SeEtta
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