Yesterday I drove east of Pueblo looking for Harlan's Red-tailed Hawks and any other raptors I could find. I was rewarded for my efforts with a total of 3 Harlan's, 1 Merlin and 1 Prairie Falcon in addition to 7 Western Red-tailed Hawks. This is the first Harlan's I found which was in far eastern Pueblo County. It was very, very skittish so the closest I could get for pics was 400-500 feet which put my extended zoom to it's max. And it only perched on trees on private property away from the public road. In addition to the mostly black plumage speckled with a little white as seen on these Harlanii Red-tails, the white loral area on the face of this dark morph Harlan's can be seen in these pics. In the middle pic though it shows a reddish tail you can see it does not have the light scapulars so distinctive on the backs of perched Western Red-tailed Hawks. SeEtta
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