Gosh I was surprised to spot another Broad-winged Hawk this morning as it soared above Canon City. This one was a light morph, the second of those I have seen here this year. I have uploaded photos of it onto my Birds and Nature blog <http://birdsandnature.blogspot.com/> but they are not nearly as good as the other Broad-winged Hawk photos as it was several hundred feet away and about that high above too.
I also uploaded on my blog more photos of the subadult dark morph Broad-winged Hawk I found yesterday. I do believe that it is a different bird, albeit two dark morphs in 3 days, as it is clearly a subadult and I believe the first dark morph is an adult (and I have support for this from someone who knows these hawks well). I do want to clarify that when I posted the Cornell stats that dark morph's make up only 0.1% of the Broad-wings that was for the entire population. Brian Wheeler in Raptors of North America said about dark morphs referencing Colorado: "All ages are annual in small numbers in the spring along the foothills of the Rocky Mtns, especially at Dinosaur Ridge Hawkwatch .... Probably annual in Prowers Co in the fall." And the Dinosaur Ridge report that is sent to cobirds states at the bottom of the report, " Dinosaur Ridge may be the best place in the country to see the rare dark morph of the Broad-winged Hawk (a few are seen each spring)." So far this season there have been two other reports of dark morphs besides mine, one in Lamar and one if Cottonwood Canyon. So while dark morphs of this species are rare, they are less rare here in Colorado. SeEtta Moss Canon City Personal blog @ http://BirdsAndNature.blogspot.com Blogging for Birds an Blooms Magazine @ http://BirdsAndBloomsBlog.com -- 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 cobirds+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to cobirds@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
