Subject: Re: Susan's hawk
Date: Aug 30 10:35:17 1995
From: Christopher Hill - cehill at u.washington.edu


Susan,

Parts of your description made me think of a perigrine - they often fly
with a steady rowing flight, they have bands (if indistinct) on their
tail, they have a tail that narrows towards the tip, and they would
probably appear to have a wingspan of about three feet. Notice that I
said *appear to have.* Estimating absolute size is notoriously unreliable,
even with a consensus of observers. Dennis's point is well taken, that
describing a bird's size in terms of other familiar birds (how much bigger
than a crow, a pigeon, a jay) is much more useful. Immature peregrines
might well appear to have warm buffy tones on the underwings.

However, the way you describe wing-shape doesn't fit well with peregrines.

Often, the best course to take when trying to figure out a mystery bird,
once you have narrowed it down to family ("hawk"), is to start with the
most likely choice (probably Red-tailed Hawk), and ask "how do I know that
it is *not* a RTH?" (the richest source of mystery birds is common birds
that look slightly different from what you expect, or are seen poorly, or
both. If you can answer that question clearly and definitively, move on
to the next most common candidate. If you can't answer that question,
though, hope fades for a positive ID. Just hope for a better look next
time.


Chris Hill
Seattle, WA
cehill at u.washington.edu