Welcome to World Bird Wednesday
When you only have a moment to take in the characteristics of a bird it is easy for the new birder to make inadvertant misidentifacations. Such was the case when this hawk landed in the tree next to the high bank.
"A Red Tailed Hawk," I announced authoritativly. Wrong.
One picture can be worth a thousand foggy recolections and in this case the eventual verdict was a Broad-Winged Hawk (Buteo platypterus). When viewed with a recent picture of a Red-Tailed Hawk, seen below, it's easy to see the obvious difference in the breast feathers which was our main clue.
Broad-Winged hawks enjoy their summers in Michigan an elsewhere in North America than migrate to Northern South America, about a 4,300 mile jaunt, to winter over. Once at their wintering grounds the Broad-Winged hawk keeps about a one square mile home range. They love to rid the forest of small rodents perched aloft as this one is before diving in to take their prey.
So be on guard young birders, mind your breast feathers or you too shall speak to hastily!
P.S. It seems there is some question that this may be a Red-shouldered Hawk. Did I speak to hastily again?
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| Bonus shot! |
The Red-Tailed Hawk
And now it's time for World Bird Wednesday!
This is the home of "World Bird Wednesday." It is a place for bird lovers from around the world to share their photo-blogs and birding experiences. The Blogosphere connects like minded people from around our planet like no other technology can do. Our fourth World Bird Wednesday will be open for posting at 12 noon Tuesday EST North America through noon on Thursday.
You are invited to link your blog with other bird photographers in a weekly celebration of these most diverse and beautiful of Earth's residents, the BIRDS!
Three easy steps!
#1. Simply copy the above picture onto your W.B.W. blog entry. It contains a link for your readers to share in WBW. Or you can copy this link on to your blog page to share W.B.W. http://pineriverreview.blogspot.com/
#2. Come to The Pine River Review on Tuesday Noon EST through Thursday Noon and submit your blog entry with Linky.
#3. Check back in during the course of the next day and explore these excellent photoblogs!
The thumbnails below are links to our contributors blogs where you can view their beautiful posts. The idea of a meme is that you will visit each others blogs and perhaps leave a comment to encourage your compadres.
Come on it's your turn!
Beautiful shots of the hawks Springman! I do believe that the bird in the first photo, however, is my favorite Buteo, the Red-shouldered Hawk. Note the black and white mottled wing pattern when perched.
ReplyDeleteHello, nice photos of the hawk! That's a bird we don't have here in Norway!
ReplyDeleteThis Wednesday I've linked to two old posts, don't have much time for photo these days. We only have a few hours with light, it's far to long between photographing now...
Larry,
ReplyDeleteRed Shouldered Hawk! Now I'll have to begin my research again. To funny!
Oyvind,
The Arctic circle. Wow, I won't bore you with my small weather problems here in the mitten. At least we have 9 hours of sunlight at the 45th parallel. I LOVE old posts by the way, they're your greatest hits!
What a beautiful bird! The bottom shot is my favourite.
ReplyDeleteOh yeah, the identification of raptors... you have some nice photos here and pointed out where the difference is. That's great cause I think it's a great way to learn, so thanks!
ReplyDeleteA magnificent bird. Love that first picture.
ReplyDeleteNice capture of the Red-shouldered Hawk. A species that I have yet to see. I hope to see one next year during the raptor migration through Niagara.
ReplyDeleteI second the Red-shouldered Hawk identification. These things are tough man, I mis-identified a dark phase Rough-legged Hawk for a Western Red-tailed Hawk. I'm like you, I'm so used to seeing mostly Red-tails that it is usually the first thing I blurt out.
ReplyDeleteFantastic Hawk.
ReplyDeleteoh dear, identification really is a though one. And yet you have this gorgeous shot. :)
ReplyDeleteI take a lot of pics, for two reasons. I have always taken photos. And I need them to verify the birds I see. Sadly the birders in the club I joined seem disturbed when I am shoting. So I left and now I am birding by myself.
When I first saw the photo my mind said "red shoulder" then I read the post and thought well maybe Im wrong then I read the last part and thought well maybe Im right! LOL either way its a beauty!! I wanted to post an entry for the WBW but dont think Ill have time to get it up..
ReplyDeleteTwo excellent specimens.
ReplyDeleteLovely images of a beautiful bird.
ReplyDeleteIt does look like a red-shouldered hawk...I'm only saying this because we have them here and one day, I saw one just standing in the water and called the bird of prey place...they came out and said it was a red-shouldered hawk. Unfortunately, they were not able to save it. SO SAD! All that to say, yours looks just like the one I saw.
ReplyDeleteI put up a new blog, inspired by WBW! It's just for my bird photos... http://oneflewovertheemptynest.blogspot.com/
Your pictures are beautiful, as usual! Thanks for your encouragement and inspiration!
Whoa! This is a really good WBW. I'm having problems keeping up with the posts. I'm so happy you like the hawk pictures. I guess we're agreeing that it is a Red Shouldered Hawk at this juncture! I think I will add a picture of the birds back to the post back to help things along.
ReplyDeleteOkay, back to the WBW!
Great shot of the Red-shouldered Hawk from behind Springman. Their spotted wings when folded turn into stripes when seen from below as they fly overhead, wings spread. Check out the last photo of this post.
ReplyDeleteExcellent shot. Someday I will have a grown-up camera so i can have the detailed shots.
ReplyDeleteI forgot to add my eagle to my post so I put him on the thumb-nail. MB
really nice shots, Springman! I especially like the touch of snow on its perch in the first frame!
ReplyDeleteThank you for pointing out the differences between these hawks, and thank you for hosting this meme which seems to be taking off in style.
ReplyDeleteCracking shots Springman. Another great edition of World Bird Wednesday.
ReplyDeleteI am simply blown away by all the detail in you shots!!!
ReplyDeleteSuch wonderful close-ups! I agree it is a Red-shouldered with so much red on the belly and head.....beautiful whatever it is! I love taking hawk photos. I see more Red Tails than anything else, so this is a treat to see.
ReplyDeleteGreetings, Springman! Thanks so much for visiting Colorado in Color and commenting. Much appreciated!
ReplyDeleteAnd now I found your blog and I am mightily impressed...absolutely gorgeous shots and I don't care what kind of hawk it is! ;-))
I'll be back!
Hawks can be tough to ID. I have certainly had my struggles. Your photos of these breath-taking birds are beyond super!!!
ReplyDelete