At 08:11 PM 8/7/98 -0700, Rob Saecker wrote:

>Don nicely clarifies my original post; I hadn't meant to imply that
>hovering was the normal hunting fashion for red-tails, ferruges, or
>Swainson's, just that they are all capable of using it.

Yes, exactly.

>But just to simplify things for Jerry, let's drop the problem of dark morph
>birds for the time being.

Or at least ask if the bird WERE a dark morph, and a truly dark one at
that, not an intergrade of some sort. If the bird showed a lot of
pale plumage, normal rough-leg marks ought to be visible.

> So what do you look for in a light morph
>rough-leg? From the top side, a white patch on the upper end of the tail
>feathers (_not_ the same as the white rump patch of a harrier), and white
>patches at the base of the primaries. From the underside, look for the dark
>spots at the "wrist" of the wings. If you see these, you got a rough-leg.
>Have I over-simplified? Yeah, but you gotta start somewhere...

This fits probably 95% of the ones we see, at least, maybe much higher (I've
not seen that many dark morph rough-legs myself).

>One more suggestion for your library, Jerry: go get _Hawks in Flight_ by
>Dunne, Sibley, and Sutton. The best hawk illustrations to be had, in my
>opinion, and a nicely written text.

I agree with this, too. Better than Peterson's for ID to species purpose,
though Peterson's is better for IDing morphs to the standard terminology
(a problem Hawks in Flight isn't concerned with).



- Don Baccus, Portland OR <dhogaza at pacifier.com>
Nature photos, on-line guides, and other goodies at
http://donb.photo.net