Various people have spoken on the following:

>Dan Victor forwarded Andy's comments to me, more of them than were in Ray's
>forwarding. I'll reply briefly to them, to add to what I wrote earlier.

>But there is no record committee that would accept a report of a rare hawk
>without detailed plumage description. And in fact there are plenty of
>differences between Red-tails and Red-shoulders--in plumage--that have to
>be documented for an acceptable record, where one of the species is rare
>(for example, the Red-tailed Hawk on the Florida Keys!).

>>I'm also surprised nobody played a tape to this bird. If it responded with
>>even a brief call, the case would be open and shut in my opinion.
>
>I agree. Where they are common, Red-shoulders are very vocal, much more so
>than Red-tails, in my experience. Have people heard any of the Ridgefield
>birds calling?

>
>Steve Pink, Bart Whelton and I were at the Ridgefield site in January
>admiring the Vermillion Flycatcher and heard 2 Red-shouldered Hawks in the
>distance. I instantly honed in on these two calling birds (apparently
>squaring off, from opposite sides of a wide slough). We trekked a good 1/4
>mile sw to the area where they were calling and had good looks - one an
>adult, the other an immature. Their calls are utterly unique for a raptor
>north of the Mex/US border (and probably so for tropical species).

All right, folks. I've just about had enough of this. There is too much
controversy here to let it go unmitigated. Is the bird still at McNary?
Get a
team together and settle this once and for all. There are lots of
educated
observers within the Tweeters domain. I would love to go down if I had
the
chance but winter and distance are big deterrents. Questions like this
cannot
be answered by staring into a computer screen. We have better things to
do on
Tweeters than to start second-guessing each other.

- decidedly grumpy,
Jack




Jack Bowling
Prince George, BC
CANADA
jcbowling at mindlink.bc.ca