On Mon, 24 Jul 1995, Jim Lady wrote:

> On Sun, 23 Jul 1995, Don Baccus wrote:
>
> > Well, if it's a harrier either it's an immy male with an exceptionally
> > yellow eye (assuming the description is correct), or an adult male.
> > If the latter, I'd assume the original poster would've made our
> > task easier by describing the bird as grey.
> >
>
> I had 10 - 15 minutes to examine it. The eyes were definitely yellow,
> and the bird definitely was not grey.

Pg. 31 of "A Photographic Guide to North American Raptors" by Wheeler &
Clark (Academic) shows an adult and juvenile Northern Harrier in which
the adult appears to show a yellow eye. Both birds also show the clean
white ring around the neck giving the owl-like appearance you mentioned.
The underparts are heavily streaked with brown on a light tan or buff
background and there is dark brown mottling on the sides of the neck on
both birds.

The long tail and white uppertail coverts should clinch the
identification. I can find nothing in the original description which
eliminates harrier.

> I've studied some other references since then, and I'm pretty well
> convinced it was a RT hawk. Everything fits except the peculiar marking
> around the head, which is what confused me. The ring I described basically
> encircled the face - it was more like concentric white and brown rings. I
> have found no illustrations of immature RT hawks that come close to what I
> saw, in that regard, but the general shape (especially of the head) fits.

There is a broad dark area behind the pale ring in the photos cited.

----------
Joe Morlan
Albany, CA
jmorlan at slip.net