ML645911717

Detalles de la observación

First seen at 3:45 pm, it flew out of trees the vultures were in on the opposite side the lake from the diving spot. It flew a bit further down and landed in another tree. I first thought it may have been a zone tailed when it flew out of the trees since it was dark and had 2 white bands on the tail, but it was not flying like a zone tailed hawk would and I don’t think they normally have white on the tip of the tail. So my best guess is that the bird is a dark morph broad winged hawk. I took a picture of where it landed but it is not good enough to id. Update: I had made a mistake when first writing my observation, I should have included why I did think red shouldered hawk was a possibility since it is much more common in the area, but considering that the bird was mostly dark colored above and below, with no visible barring on the chest or belly, except for the 2 white tail bands and tip of the tail. which I originally described the tip as white but whitish would have been a better description. Made me think it was not necessary since as far as I am aware red shouldered hawks do not have a dark morph and even if the hawk I saw was not a true dark morph, the number of bands on the tail, 5, with 3 being dark and 2 white, with the basal band and terminal bands being the widest with the other three bands, one white near the middle of the tail, followed by a dark and another white tail band being about the same width. I am not counting the whitish coloration to the tail tip because it did not form a complete or uniform band. Which seemed to, at least to me, be less than what you would expect to see on a red shouldered hawk. Also, the lack of barring on the chest and belly seems to further point away from both red shouldered hawk and a light morph broad winged hawk and more towards a zone tailed or dark morph broad winged. So the only birds I could think of at the time were broad winged and zone tailed hawks which while both are rare at the location and time of year, I am still leaning towards it being a broad winged rather than zone tailed. Which I think I gave enough reason to rule it out above but if not let me know and I will try to remember if there’s anything thing else to add, but if I can not completely rule out zone tailed I will change the observation to hawk sp. Edited- wording and clarification Will change to buteo sp. if necessary.