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Is this a hawk? kind? (1 Viewer)

Not much good at raptors, but is it a Golden Eagle - large, light colored bill, lighter colored head, and stripes on tail?
 
This isn't a Golden Eagle - first off you can see it's non-feathered legs; also tail and structure are wrong. GEs have feathered legs like so:
http://www.usbr.gov/mp/ccao/berryessa/photo_gallery/wildlife/golden_eagle.jpg

This bird has the structure of a Buteo - I haven't birded in the west in a while, but I believe it's a dark morph Swainson's Hawk. Can't see any other alternatives - adult Red-tailed's tail would be, well, red, and young Red-tailed's eyes would be pale (probably other ID marks I'm not picking up on right now - kinda zonked).
 
I'm not arguing with Alex or Scott but why isn't this a juv Red-tail? Only because that is what I thought right off the bat, again not trying to be stupid or anything.

Is it because it is missing the white spotting on the back?

-Matt
 
MLoyko said:
I'm not arguing with Alex or Scott but why isn't this a juv Red-tail? Only because that is what I thought right off the bat, again not trying to be stupid or anything.

Is it because it is missing the white spotting on the back?

-Matt
Click to expand...

Matt, it is a Redtail.
 
I thought so, I'm so used to seeing them around here I didn't even think twice about another species. I guess if this gets out of hand Roy and I are in the Juvenile RTH camp ;)
 
It looks like a juvenile "Western" RTH, dark or medium rufous morph. It's tail looks like a juvenile RTH's tail and it is well within the Western RTH's year round range. The wings don't look long enough in relation to the tail for it to be a Swainson's.
Bob
 
MLoyko said:
why isn't this a juv Red-tail? Only because that is what I thought right off the bat, again not trying to be stupid or anything.

Is it because it is missing the white spotting on the back?
Click to expand...

Juvenile Red-Tailed Hawks have pale irises, but the bird in question here seems to have an all dark one. I don't know if you can rule that out in favor of the other factors, but I see nothing pointing away from a dark morph Swainson's, while the iris puts me off a RTH.
 
Amurfalcon said:
Juvenile Red-Tailed Hawks have pale irises, but the bird in question here seems to have an all dark one. I don't know if you can rule that out in favor of the other factors, but I see nothing pointing away from a dark morph Swainson's, while the iris puts me off a RTH.
Click to expand...

That was my thought too - the iris pushing me to Swainy. But I will say, shooting from the hip, my initial reaction was RTH (to be fair though, I'm an East Coaster). Perhaps the head is shadowing the eye so it just looks dark? I dunno. I'm on the fence between the two, but I can't reconcile the dark iris. I'll look up RTH aging on BNA tomorrow if it hasn't been discussed by then. G'night folks.
 
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Actually after looking through the one book I have with me (wheeler's is outside in my backpack) I may have to join Alex on the fence...for now. I'm hitting the hay too, I'll see how this progresses when I wake in 4 hours for an 8am class (it takes me awhile to wake) :-C
 
Thanks for the efforts so far... hopefully we can come to a consensus. RTH are common in Yellowstone according to the Park's info, but of course, in YNP, who knows. My first thought was a hawk of some sort...
 
For what it's worth, I was in Yellowstone about two-and-a-half weeks ago, and saw a Buteo much like this that gave me trouble. I had a good, long scope view (ventral) of the perched bird, in excellent conditions, but unfortunately did not get to see it fly.

I initially i/d'd that bird as a (dark, or perhaps intermediate) Swainson's, but upon reflection, decided that it was actually a dark-morph Red-tail (hatch-year). (The frustrating thing is, I can't for the life of me remember on what basis. Possibly the wing proportion? Rather tricky to see in the O.P.'s photo, unfortunately). I know this isn't saying much, but just to point out that this is not always easy to do. Especially for us easterners ;) (Perhaps the iris is just shaded out).

Did not see any Swainson's Hawks there, or anywhere else for that matter. (Sadly. Could they have all gone south already? Or has the pesticide situation become horribly worse, since I went west last? That time [about 16 yrs ago] couldn't look up without seeing one. Mind you, that was June...)

Peter C.
 
This is not an easy one! All the pictures of perched juvenile Swainson's show in Wheeler's Western Edition at pp 292-293 (8 in all) show birds with light and/or mixed colored auricular and cheek areas unlike the solid brown shown on this bird here. Harlan's do show this mixed coloring but they aren't shown as being located anywhere in the Yellowstone River area on Wheeler's range maps. Most of Wheeler's photos of perched juv western RTH's show good views of their pale irises and greenish colored ceres. But these are superb photos focused in on the eyes. The one most similar to this bird is plate 405 at page 360 showing a similar tail pattern and head coloring.

I ended up going with the wing length as the defining field mark.
Bob
 
IMO this is a young RTH. You can kind of see the pale V on the back of this bird. It's been speculated that this could be a dark morph or rufus morph. Don't think it's a dark morph as they're almost black. I have pictures of one. The other things, can the iris vary? The dark morph pic I have shows a bird with at least medium colored eyes, they certainly weren't pale.
 
I am no bird expert, obviously, thats why I posted it here... but my initial impression was a red tailed hawk (since I see them all the time here in NEO) but wasnt 100%...
 
back to red-tailed

I'm back to my original thought of Red-tailed hawk. I knew I stated RTH of the bat in the beginning for some reason other than to turn this into another ID battle ;)

I wasn't convinced on Swainson's so I went and looked at the photo more closely, I zoomed in on the eye and found that it does appear to have a pale iris. It seems that the way the head is turned and where the light is positioned and the distance the photographer was away from the bird, a shadow was cast over the eye making it harder to pick up....if that makes sense.

Here is a close-up crop of the head I circled in red, you can see black in the middle (pupil) surrounded by lighter color on the left, right, and bottom part of the eye. Now if that is just an artifact so be it but it looks like the iris to me.
 

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I thought this was red-tailed from the get go -- the eye is in shadow and looks darker than the brightly-lit head and back.
 
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