On Mon, 24 Jul 1995, Joe Morlan wrote:

> 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.
>

I checked out this reference, and I think the coloration and the head
shape are all wrong. The picture of an immature RT hawk on p. 195 of the
Nat'l Geo. Society's Field Guide to Birds of N. America (2nd ed.) is quite
close, and it does shows a slight ring around the face.

Jim Lady
Center for Quantitative Science
University of Washington
jiml at cqs.washington.edu