Hi all, Sorry for the late posting.
Yesterday evening, I saw a very attractive dark morph Red-tailed Hawk sitting on the hydro lines along Hwy 6 (Plank Rd) between Hagersville and Caledonia. The location was between 3rd and 4th Line next to house #4830. The bird is either the Western subspecies (calurus) or perhaps a rare dark morph eastern bird as per Jean Iron's summary of the situation in her note in the TOC Newsletter of Feb 2012: http://www.jeaniron.ca/2012/darkredtailsTOCNews.pdf The head and body seemed to be a uniform dark chocolate brown all over and the tail was deep brick red. After pulling over and having a brief view of the bird with binoculars, it flew slightly south and perched in a grove of trees beside a farm house (#4830). In flight, the flight feathers were white, barred with black. Neither while perched, nor in flight did I notice any black barring on the tail. The absence of such barring would suggest that this is a rare dark morph eastern bird since the Western species has black barring over the brick red tail (see Ron Pittaway's excellent article from the April 1993 issue of Ontario Birds (http://www.jeaniron.ca/2010/redtailsRF.pdf). At the time, however, I wasn't specifically looking for such barring so I may have missed it. Had I had a scope with me, I may have been able to study the bird in more detail from it's perch in the trees near the house. If other's are in the area looking for this very attractive bird, perhaps closer study will reveal whether or not there is black barring on the tail. Photos would be wonderful! Good birding, Colin Jones Lakefield, ON _______________________________________________ ONTBIRDS is presented by the Ontario Field Ornithologists - the provincial birding organization. Send bird reports to [email protected] For information about ONTBIRDS including how to unsubscribe visit http://www.ofo.ca/site/page/view/information.ontbirdssetup
