I went to take a look this afternoon. This would (embarrassingly) be a lifer for me. So my judgment is probably clouded as one would expect for someone in the 400's of life list who is lucky to add 10 a year without selfishly targeting my vacations for birds. I studied it for 15 minutes as it moved from perch to perch (I was in my car on Clover Basin, Grandview and another residential road near the Blue Skies park. I could never get a look at the underwings as it would fly away from my viewpoint and drop low immediately. I studied the legs for feathers and could not see any, but when I went back to study at the computer I see that those would be more subtle than what I was expecting with the name "rough legged". But how about this tidbit. It perched in a short tree once in a remarkably thin branch. I thought that was odd and then later read on Cornell All About Birds that this is a behavior for roughies. Might it be true for a Harlan's too? BTW this individual would certainly not be a dark-morph roughie.
Hopefully someone gets a pic and does whatever necessary to convince us all it is a roughie (photoshop is always an option ;-) Ron Bolton Berthoud On Tuesday, January 19, 2016 at 5:30:14 PM UTC-7, Christian Nunes wrote: > > Hi All, > > I hate to be a pester, but I've noticed several local reports of > Rough-legged Hawks recently which were supported by photos. In each case, > the bird in question has been a Harlan's Red-tailed Hawk. This includes a > photo of the bird referred to below. > > Rough-legged Hawks are not a rarity, so not many questions are usually > asked. However, these recent photo-documented cases bring up the > identification conundrum between Roughies and Harlan's (they have been > known to hybridize, btw: > http://ebird.org/content/ebird/news/hybrid_halhxrlha/). > > Some things to remember are that Rough-legged Hawks are irruptive. Some > years they are plentiful throughout much of the state, but most years they > are restricted to the eastern plains and mountain valleys and are seen only > sporadically along the Front Range. They don't return to established winter > territories, which is a classic habit of Harlan's Hawks. Just yesterday I > identified a Harlan's Hawk an eighth of a mile away by naked eye based > simply on the dark color and the perch it was on, one which has been used > by the same exact bird for several years. Scope views confirmed my hunch. > There was a famous light-morph Harlan's that spent many winters on 75th St > and St. Vrain Rd in Boulder County and who was photographed at a hawk watch > in Alaska one spring. For at least five winters it could be found on the > same exact telephone pole, or within a few hundred yards of it. There was > an excellent piece in Colorado Birds 44:1 about this story: > http://cobirds.org/JournalArchives/2010-2019/2010%20Vol%2044/CB_2010_44_1_Jan.pdf > > Also remember that dark-morph Rough-legged Hawks are very uncommon in the > state. Harlan's are superficially similar, especially those with a pale > tail with a wide dark terminal band. They invariably have white streaking > on the breast, a feature not shown on dark-morph Rough-legged Hawks. The > kicker is that Roughies have feathers tarsi, unlike Red-tailed Hawks of any > ilk. > > Keep on enjoying these Arctic visitors, > > Christian Nunes > Longmont > > ------------------------------ > Date: Tue, 19 Jan 2016 13:47:19 -0800 > From: [email protected] <javascript:> > To: [email protected] <javascript:> > Subject: [cobirds] Re: Rough-Legged Hawk in Longmont (Boulder County) > > Thanks for the heads up! > > --Jamie Simo > Longmont, CO > > On Tuesday, January 19, 2016 at 10:57:34 AM UTC-7, Kat Bradley-Bennett > wrote: > > A Rough-Legged Hawk has again taken up winter residence in Blue Skies Park > in west Longmont. I've seen it perched on the perching poles in the park > and in a tree near the intersection of Clover Basin Drive and Grandview > Meadows Drive, nest to the sledding hill. > > Kat Bradley-Bennett > Longmont > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Colorado Birds" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected] <javascript:>. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected] <javascript:> > . > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/cobirds/2c54c4f4-8760-4d7c-809e-5ae81ac28875%40googlegroups.com > > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/cobirds/2c54c4f4-8760-4d7c-809e-5ae81ac28875%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> > . > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Colorado Birds" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/cobirds/e3d5dedd-4179-4e8d-9a63-d129907a1d8e%40googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
