Birds and Nature

I feel bad that my persistence in trying to identify and photograph this subadult Broad-winged Hawk caused it to fly off away from the riparian forest that provided good stop-over habitat and hope it flew to another section of Canon City Riverwalk. This is a photo of it in flight. It shows a moderate amount of dark streaking on it's underparts, some barring on remiges, a wide dark read edge to wings plus barring on tail as noted earlier. SeEtta

Wow, I spotted another Broad-winged Hawk this morning soaring over Canon City. It was a light morph, and obvious adult (tail banding),  the second of those this year. I believe the two sightings of dark morphs were different birds, first one an adult and second one a subadult--so that makes 4 Broad-winged Hawks so far this migration season. I usually only see one each year. Wish it meant the population is doing well but is more likely some other reason like winds aloft pushing them closer to the mountains (into Fremont County) or that they are coming this way to avoid the more severe drought on the southeastern plains. SeEtta