I found this hawk this morning east of the Pintail Lake trail. Unfortunately the tree was perched in a tree well over a hundred feet away (more like 150 feet). Due to that distance, the mostly cloudy sky and my handholding the camera, I had to use a high ISO setting and fast speed so the pics came out pretty dark and I was unable to lighten them any better than as shown without distorting them.
The hawk is blackish with a wide white band around the middle of the tail, a narrow white terminal tail band, it has a yellowish cere, wingtips are shorter than tail tip, and it appears to have long legs. These fit the description for a Common Black Hawk. Also it called and retrospectively it sounds like the call of a Common Black Hawk.
What I have some problem with is the white feathers that can be seen in the last two pics that appear to be in the area of the upper legs that are whitish which are not consistent with extensive description of Common Black Hawk in
Raptors of Western North America by Wheeler. I have some experience with this species as a Common Black Hawk spent a month in my town (Canon City,CO) several years ago and visited on several other occasions--in all, I observed the species on at least 8-10 occasions and photographed it. I don't see these whitish feathers in my Colo photos (viewable on my old blog at
SE Colo Birding).
Birds of North America online states, "irregular in Lower Rio Grande Valley (G. Lasley pers. comm.)." I searched Texbirds archives and found it has been some years since this species was reported in LRGV in winter.
The other possibility is a ray Hawk that is fairly dark so that it would appear blackish in my pics. This would resolve my issue of the white feathers near the legs of the bird I photographed since Gray Hawks have white undertail coverts. The descriptions indicate that the wingtips of Gray Hawks go halfway down the tail so I am unsure if they would cover the additional white tail bands. Hopefully I will get some assistance to resolve these identification issues. SeEtta
I found this hawk this morning east of the Pintail Lake trail. Unfortunately the tree was perched in a tree well over a hundred feet away (more like 150 feet). Due to that distance, the mostly cloudy sky and my handholding the camera, I had to use a high ISO setting and fast speed so the pics came out pretty dark and I was unable to lighten them any better than as shown without distorting them. 
The hawk is blackish with a wide white band around the middle of the tail, a narrow white terminal tail band, it has a yellowish cere, wingtips are shorter than tail tip, and it appears to have long legs. These fit the description for a Common Black Hawk. Also it called and retrospectively it sounds like the call of a Common Black Hawk.
What I have some problem with is the white feathers that can be seen in the last two pics that appear to be in the area of the upper legs that are whitish which are not consistent with extensive description of Common Black Hawk in Raptors of Western North America by Wheeler. I have some experience with this species as a Common Black Hawk spent a month in my town (Canon City,CO) several years ago and visited on several other occasions--in all, I observed the species on at least 8-10 occasions and photographed it. I don't see these whitish feathers in my Colo photos (viewable on my old blog at SE Colo Birding). 
Birds of North America online states, "irregular in Lower Rio Grande Valley (G. Lasley pers. comm.)." I searched Texbirds archives and found it has been some years since this species was reported in LRGV in winter. 
The other possibility is a ray Hawk that is fairly dark so that it would appear blackish in my pics. This would resolve my issue of the white feathers near the legs of the bird I photographed since Gray Hawks have white undertail coverts. The descriptions indicate that the wingtips of Gray Hawks go halfway down the tail so I am unsure if they would cover the additional white tail bands. Hopefully I will get some assistance to resolve these identification issues. SeEtta
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