With the large numbers of eagles at Conowingo since Thanksgiving, and numerous eagles spotted by Herb Houghton at Plank Road and Rio Reservoir, I thought today would bring some eagles to Croton, New York. Nothing personally viewed by myself, although one park visitor claimed to have seen an "immie", and another took a nice photo of a single adult male.
No eagles for me today, but plenty of hawks flying - Red Tailed and Rough-Legged. I was able to get some BIF shots of a beautiful female Rough-Legged Hawk. Her black marks at wrists, and pale streaked chest and broad dark belly were quite evident.
Great images Gene and this confirms a hawk I had seen and was unsure what it was, now I know This hawk seems to have a short body or smaller than the RTH?? At first glance for me I thought it was a harrier by the head but very nice underwing markings on these.
Great in-flights, thanks for sharing and ID on it.
I would love to see one of these! they are so beautiful. you did a great job on the BIF shots. The only thing I could suggest is to crop with more room in front of the bird (in the direction its going). thanks for sharing!
I've never seen one in the wild, so thanks for the thread. The markings are very different from hawks I've seen.
Thanks for the kind words, Mark. The underwing markings are truly unique. The only other raptor that I can think of with such distinctive underwing markings is the immature Golden Eagle with its' " headlights" (of course they are WHITE patches).
Karl Witt wrote:
Great images Gene and this confirms a hawk I had seen and was unsure what it was, now I know This hawk seems to have a short body or smaller than the RTH?? At first glance for me I thought it was a harrier by the head but very nice underwing markings on these.
Great in-flights, thanks for sharing and ID on it.
Karl
Appreciate you comments, Karl. When perched and viewed from the front it is somewhat similar to the Red-Tailed Hawk - they both have brownish streaks on a white chest, but the Rough-Legged Hawk had a solid dark brown belly.
Sean Bellay wrote:
I would love to see one of these! they are so beautiful. you did a great job on the BIF shots. The only thing I could suggest is to crop with more room in front of the bird (in the direction its going). thanks for sharing!
Thanks for the kind words and suggestion, Sean. You are quite right, they are truly beautiful!
Brenton Biggs wrote:
That is one extremely pretty raptor. Your in flight shots show him off really well! Nice work on those!!!
Thanks for the very nice comments, Brenton. Viewing the underside of this raptor, when fully illuminated by sunlight is a truly remarkable site. The contrast of the black wrist marks and the white underwing feathers is brilliant! Brenton, I believe this hawk was a female (as viewed through binoculars), due to extremely white underwing feathers, only single dark band on tail feathers, and nearly completely dark brown belly.
Deborah Allen and I think you have a juvenile (first-year) RL Hawk at Croton. The tail band on the underside of the tail is light (grey) and not dark (almost black). This is characteristic of young RLs. Adults have a black terminal band (males darker than females; and adult males have a few more thin bars on the underside of the tail than do the adult females). As in most raptors, females are larger than males...So we think you have a young RL - but we cannot sex it based upon your photos (size is difficult to judge in photos). Your final photo of the RL (perched showing top side of tail) shows a strong (dark) tail band...if (for whatever reason) the underside tail band was this dark, then we would agree that you have an adult female RL...but all your other shots indicate to us you have a first-year bird, sex unknown...We would say you have a light morph bird too...(Bill Clark might call it an intermediate morph - since there can be much lighter RLs.)
Several RLs now appearing in the area - Meadowlands (NJ) seems to have several...at least one place in the Bronx has a light morph annd a dark morph.
This hawk seems to have a short body or smaller than the RTH?? At first glance for me I thought it was a harrier by the head but very nice underwing markings on these.
Eugene.
