[TN-Bird] Re: New Photos - including lt-morph Harlan's Hawk
- From: Andrew Core <andrewcore@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: littlezz@xxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2011 15:55:06 -0700
Hi Bill et al,
I hope it's ok to interject some out-of-Tennessee experience; here in
Arizona we get very few Harlan's and even fewer light morphs, but there
have been a few that have been photographed. You can view one (with a
writeup on ID points) here:
http://www.azfo.org/gallery/2009/html5/HRLH_MPG_Core_20091213.html
I am not an expert on Harlan's by any stretch of the imagination, but to
summarize, overall color and the tail are key. Typical light-morph birds
have blackish upperparts that lack warm brown tones, with white markings on
the scapulars. Underparts lack the rufous tones typical of other Red-tails,
with light or moderate belly bands. Light morph Harlan's generally have
strong facial patterns as well.
Tail patterns in Harlan's Hawk are extraordinarily varied and diverse; no
two are alike. Tails can be barred, mottled, spotted, or a combination of
all three; often have wavy dark bands, which can be light or heavy, narrow
or wide, partial or complete. The color can be white, gray, rufous, with
any shade in between, or a combination,. Individual feathers will often
have a different pattern or color than other feathers in the same tail!
Looking at Jeff's bird, it has a strong facial pattern, and the tail looks
good for Harlan's. Appears to have some white spotting on the scapulars and
a faint belly band as well.
There are a couple links to some helpful pdfs at the bottom of the page;
check out the Birding link with all the tail patterns!
See other recent Harlan's Hawks (most dark, some intermediate, and one or
two light) here:
http://www.azfo.org/gallery/1main/photos_tax.html#Birds_of_Prey
regards,
Andrew
--
Andrew Core
Tucson, AZ
On Mon, Dec 12, 2011 at 3:14 PM, Bill Pulliam wrote:
> Jeff-- Light morph Harlan's is a very unfamiliar plumage to most of us;
> even when I lived in eastern Colorado, where dark-phase Harlan's were not
> all that unusual, we hardly ever saw the light ones. I know I'm kind of
> unsure of the critical ID points and I suspect many others here are, too.
> It gets short shrift in most field guides. I wonder if you could give us
> a summary of what it takes to nail down this ID? I had a bird on the
> Savannah CBC a couple of years ago that I suspected but just felt too
> little confidence about to actually "call."
>
> Thanks --
>
> Bill Pulliam
> Hohenwald TN
>
Other related posts:
