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Posted by Trey Mitchell on 14:56:34 01/01/07
I sent photo and a description of a dark morph hawk I saw on Saturday morning at Black Point Jetty by email to several excellent birders for there opinion about the ID.
I was walking back to the parking lot on the jetty I saw a dark morph hawk. I was loaded down with scope, camera, binoculars, water and my guide. So I mainly looked at the bird with my binoculars. It was moving from north to south and crossed the jetty about midway along the walk, the tail was fairly long and I made the assumption it was a dark morph Broad-winged Hawk. I decided to try and get a photo of the bird before it disappeared behind the trees on the south side of the channel. I took 2 shots before it disappeared.
"Thanks to John Boyd for explaining that the tail isn't significantly longer on a Broad-winged than a Short-tailed and why Short-tailed s are called short tailed."
Anyway this embarrassing mistake caused Bruce Anderson who saw the photo labeled Broad-winged Dark Morph take notice and thought it actually may be a Broad-winged Hawk. I knew that dark morph hawks down here are unusual, but I had no idea that dark morph Broad-winged Hawks make up less that .1% of all Broad-winged Hawks and are usually only found in the western part of the continent.
John Boyd saw what was probably the same bird the next day about the same time of day.
"It was kiting on flat wings with the wingtips turned up." - John Boyd
The bird I observed did the same.
Anyway I'm posting the photos so "Mar Faherty" :) and other can add their input.
So far, the opinions are split equally for and against Broad-winged, with those on the Broad-winged side calling for better photos and more observation.
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