Dark patagials (or "patagial bars") is a well-known ID trait for light-morph Red-tailed Hawks, but some show very faint patagials, appearing as if they lack dark "bars" altogether. This is more common with juvenile Red-tails than adults, with Eastern Red-tails than Western, and on heavily marked Harlan's moreso than heavily marked light-morphs of other races, but light-morphs of any age or race of Red-tail can show faint patagials.
On the other hand, there are very pale Red-tailed Hawks with bold patagial marks, so be careful to ID or dismiss an ID based on this one trait. Below are a few Red-tails with faint patagials and a few lightly marked birds with bold patagials. By the way, I have seen other people's photos that are even better examples than these. Enjoy!
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8 Comments:
Thanks for this info Jerry! Always helps to know more about the raptors we love.
Holy cow, those are great examples! What a neat feature to keep an eye out for. Thanks Jerry for this blog, I love it.
Thanks Dave and Mia.
Two bottom birds look Kriderii, are they ?
Pete Gustas
The more variation you point out the more I realize that I need to look closely at every picture I see.
Aren't most of these birds Kriders?
Hi Pete and Derek
The first 3 are Harlan's, the last 3 are Krider's. But the 5th one down is tough since fuertes and krider's start to overlap in plumage between South Dakota and Oklahoma and this is a wintering bird. But shows mostly krider's traits
Nice series showing how much variation can be encountered. Add to that, "tricks" of light, a drop of sweat in the eye and (in my case) limited experience and all of a sudden a positive i.d. isn't so positive!
You mean I have to look at ALL the bird's characteristics?? :)
I'm enjoying your posts! Thank you!
Thanks Wally...I appreciate the comment
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