Birds and Nature

I spotted this hawk on the bluff not far from my house as I drove by then turned around to check it out. I originally thought it was a Harlan's Red-tailed Hawk. However, on closer examination of my photos I could see the following field marks consistent with an dark morph Rough-legged Hawk described by Brian Wheeler in Raptors of Western North America (p.390): "Very defined white mask. Yellow gape is narrow but obvious as it contrasts against the dark head." The yellow gape is clearer when the photos are enlarged further (tho parts get more blurry). I believe this bird fits best the 'Adult brown type' described by Wheeler as one of 3 subtypes whose head is "all dark without pale supercilium and auricular regions." (p. 390). In describing the body of this type, Wheeler states,"There is often a sharp demarcation line between the more tawny-brown neck and breast and the darker, uniformly blackish brown belly and flanks." (p.391) Thi...

I found this Rough-legged Hawk in Pueblo County day before yesterday. I believe it is a female light morph bird: thin dark eyeline with pale head, dark brown iris, streaked bib with dark belly, lightly barred leg feathers. Also the wingtips are about equal to the tail tip. In the bottom pic the white basal feathers on the upper tail are shown. This is only the second Rough-legged Hawk I have found so far this fall/winter, the other one located in the Coaldale,CO area. SeEtta

My posting got interrupted by the Snowy Owl and I didn't get to finish posting about some of my birding on my way home as drove through West Texas and the Panhandle. I didn't get any post-able pics of a neat spectacle I saw in small town in West Texas-- many hundreds of Chihuahuan Ravens . I first observed numbers of Chihuahuan Ravens feeding in a just-plowed ag field. When the farmer drove his tractor back towards them, the ravens started lifting off with many more coming from behind vegetation and others from the trees surrounding the field. They formed into 2 separate "kettles" and flew in apparent thermals around and around as they lifted higher--I was amazed as there were more than 500 ravens in total. As the kettles rose several hundred feet up, first one then the other kettle flew off each in a different direction. The above pic shows some of the ravens in a kettle--I just haven't mastered the technique necessary to get good pics of kettles be they r...

The Wet Mountain Valley where Westcliffe and Lake DeWeese are located provides many opportunities to see hawks. In winter, there are usually several Rough-legged Hawks though I only found one yesterday and I got the distant pic of it shown at the top (it was well over a hundred feet away). However I did see 8 Red-tailed Hawks during the half day I birded that area. The scenic mountains such as these in the Sangre de Christo range provide a great backdrop to birding in this area.