Hi Tyler,
The description you provided of the dark hawk fits very well with a
dark-phased Rough-legged Hawk. Although early, there has been a
substantial flight of hawks through southern Ontario the last week(many
days with five digit numbers!). I am unfamiliar with the occurrence of
Harlan's Red-tailed Hawk in Maryland, but dark Rough-legged Hawks are very
common (relative to light-phased) here in eastern N-America. I guess a
description of the flight siluette would be helpful with respect to
distinguishing Red-tail from Rough-legged in flight.

Frode
Baltimore, MD



> I was walking through the SERC woods at lunch. It was mostly a walk as
> the wind made it hard to see treetop birds. I had just exited the woods
> onto the boardwalk to Hog Island around 12:30 when I spied a kettle of
> Black and Turkey Vultures flying over the woods on the opposite side of
> Muddy Creek. I put my bins on them and one of them looked odd. Then it
> started to flutter flap! It wasn't a vulture at all but an all dark
> buteo! I leaned my butt onto the railing to get a more stable view and
> watched it soar, unfortunately moving south along the tree line. It
> disappeared around the trees of Hog Island so I ran across the island to
> the fish weir on the other side but all of the vultures and the buteo
> were gone.
>
> The underwing looked quite like a Turkey Vulture which is what threw me
> at first: black underwing linings and paler primaries and secondaries.
> There appeared to be a dark terminal band on the tail and paler
> rectrices between the vent and the terminal band. My best guess on this
> is a Harlan's Red-tailed Hawk. The wing shape didn't look right for a
> Swainson's Hawk.
>
> I sure hope that Sue Ricciardi's hawk counters saw this bird or that
> someone else down south of here does, too!
>
> Tyler Bell
> 
> Smithsonian Environmental Research Center
> Edgewater, MD
>
>