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Subject:

Atypical Retail Hawk?

From:

Steve Long

Reply-To:

Steve Long

Date:

Wed, 7 Dec 2011 12:26:07 -0500

A while ago, I spotted a hawk landing in a dead tree while I was walking to the beach with my binoculars.  It stayed there without shifting position for over 20 minutes, so I got good looks twice on my walk.  

It first caught my eye because of its heavily spotted/streaked breast, and I was thinking Goshawk as I raised my binoculars.  But, it clearly was not any kind of Accipiter, because the tail was too short.  It was shaped like a Buteo, with a brown back and head and no distinct eye stripes.  The underside of the tail looked white, with no bands of any type.  (I could see it clearly enough to see the edges of indiivual feathers in the bottom of the tail, but could not get to an angle where I could see the top of the tail.)

I would have no trouble calling it a Redtail Hawk, except for the breast markings.  They were uniformly spread over the entire white part of the breast/belly from head to tail.  There was no "belly band" effect like I normally see in the spots/stripes of a Redtail.  The markings were very dark, and shaped more like spots than streaks, except on the hawk's left side where it appeared that 3 spots near the throat connected into a long, not quite straight streak. 

I have watched for a while, hoping to get a photograph, but have not seen this hawk since.

I am wondering if anybody else on this list has seem a Redtail with a belly marked in this way.  

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