SE Colorado Birding

Birding and discussion: A conservation-oriented birding blog that emphasizes low-impact birding and sustainable birding practices together with the enjoyment of birds. Southeast Colorado offers a diversity of habitats which provide premiere birding opportunities. Save Sabal Palm

Monday, November 20, 2006

Juvenile Red-tailed Hawk


Again, I am just getting some pics I took last week cropped and uploaded. This was an immature Red-tailed Hawk I watched chasing another Red-tailed Hawk in Canon City. This photo shows well the multiple dark bands in their light brown, not red, tails of juvenile Red-tailed Hawk.

This bird is an Eastern morph Red-taled Hawk in which the wingtips fall far short of the tip of the tail. These juveniles tend to have fairly pale heads and the whitish streaks in the head feathers of this bird are visible. The whitish mottling on the scapular area is indicative of the common morphs of Western and Eastern Red-tailed Hawks, both juvenile and adult plumages.

Thoough the most common hawk in North America, their many races and morphs provide a good deal of variation that makes their identification interesting.
SeEtta

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