Rare dark morph Broad-winged Hawk in Canon City--the same one or not??
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...