I wanted to share some recent pics people sent me. I think I'll do this more often since I like seeing what shows up in my inbox, I think others will too. Anyway, here are some neat birds to see (link below), I have lots from the past years, so I'll make it a regular thing to post.

http://hawkwatch.org/blog/item/681-a-few-id-s-from-week-may-5

I wanted to share my sighting of a Mississippi Kite along the foothills of Salt Lake last week. It was the 2nd one for the state, one was spotted in May 2008 as well, but nonetheless, a rare bird in Utah. I have a feeling they come through with a little more regularity, but there is just no coverage in spring here to know better. I'm going to make an effort to get people more involved in spring hawkwatching along the foothills and see what we come up with...

I'm not big on rarities, so my interest really isn't about the record itself, I kinda just wanted to share my drawing I sent to the records committee because I was pretty proud of it. Hey, it's not great, but I think it looks OK. Let's see what the records committee and eBird reviewer think?

Check out a juvenile Broad-winged Hawk photographed in Texas on April 24th with an odd tail pattern...is it due to molt? Click on the link below to read about it:

http://hawkwatch.org/blog

Just wanted to let you know, I started posting on the HawkWatch International page @ http://hawkwatch.org/blog with a few recycled posts that apply to this time of year, but will have fresh posts starting tomorrow. I'll continue to post here on various subjects, and likely cross post as well. Here are some composite images (below) of Cooper's Hawks that I posted on the HWI blog showing how the appearance of a bird can change in a split second and look like a similar species.

Hope you see lots of hawks!

I got three emails yesterday regarding Sharp-shinned Hawk vs. Cooper's Hawk, with photos attached. I was waiting to post this collage ("CLICK" to enlarge) on the HawkWatch International blog, and will when it is up and running in May, but thought I would start blogging here again until then. ALL of the birds in this composite are Cooper's Hawks! Some look small headed, some look square tailed, others look stocky overall, etc. and that is why Cooper's Hawks (especially adult males) are sometimes identified as Sharp-shinned Hawks and always will be...because they look so darn similar!!!! I'll do another post of Sharp-shinned Hawks that look like Cooper's just so all of us are confused and questioning everything we ever knew once again. My main point is, be careful when identifying photos...it can be tricky, since any single photo can be misleading. Good thing I have multiple images of all of these birds to reference, and some were very close but made small for this purpose. Hope this helps.

Check out this photo...."contrasting" is the word that fits best. A slim-winged, long-tailed white colored hawk (adult male Northern Harrier) in the same frame of view as a stocky black hawk (Common Black Hawk). One of the reasons I love visiting Arizona! Sorry I haven't been blogging, but I will start blogging several times a week for HawkWatch International as soon as their website changes take place, should be soon.

I have recently started to collaborate with HawkWatch International on some ideas, and one of the things I will be doing with them is writing for their blog and starting a Hawk ID forum. I've been saving my blog ideas, so I haven't posted here in a while...although I've wanted to. But, I want things to be fresh when I move over to the HWI page. I believe it will be easy to subscribe to that page and we will link their page with this page anyway. So, hope to start blogging soon. Here is a photo of a Black Hawk I took last year. I should be seeing bunches in about a week when I head down to AZ for the migration, I'll let you know how it goes!!!