Birds and Nature

This morning I spotted an unusual looking hawk mostly hidden behind tree limbs on the Canon City Riverwalk. When I would get closer to get a better view (closer is relative, always at least 150-200 feet away) it would flush but instead of flying off as Red-tailed Hawks generally do it flew further down the forest to another perch. In my binoculars I could see the distinct whitish supercillium and the bright yellow lores plus unusual looking markings on underparts (binocular view not as close-up as these photos as these are strongly cropped to enlarge the bird). Photos show additional field marks for sub-adult Broad-winged Hawk: distinct dark malar stripe; light auricular area (should be a little darker than supercilium but bird was too distant to pick up that subtlety of coloration); brown tail with several dark bands and a wider dark subterminal band; secondaries and greater coverts are darkish brown; primaries a panel paler than color of secondaries; dark markings on belly...

Though I did a lot just observing during that half hour+ I got to watch this rare dark morph, I also got a number of pretty good photos. This is what Birds of North America online says about dark morph plumage: "Head and underparts similar to dark morph adult but show rufous and white mottling on underparts, especially breast. Tail colors similar to those in Juvenal-plumage light morph." The rufous and white mottling on the breast can be seen in the second and forth pics here. The black bill with yellow cere, legs, and feet found on both color morphs of Broad-winged Hawks. And the bottom pic shows the whitish lores with dark brown head, including forehead, that are a field mark for dark morph. SeEtta

This morning I spotted a dark morph Broad-winged Hawk that was engaged in hunting prey. I quickly learned how to stay back far enough to not flush it so I could observe it's behavior and take more photos--in fact I was able to observe it and follow it as it worked around a forested area about a quarter mile and for just over a half hour. What fun! I watched it engage in perch and pounce hunt on one occasion (it might have scored but I didn't want to get too close and risk it dropping it's prey). I was impressed by how small this hawk really is. I learned that this is a subadult bird as it has one of the two juvenile type tails as described by Brian Wheeler in Hawks of Western North America : this one has the 'narrow banded type' tail with 4 fairly narrow dark bands plus a wider dark subterminal band (noted by Wheeler to be the same on dark morph as on light morph birds). Birds of North America online notes that female and male birds of this species be...