To Don Baccus, Emily Teachout, Riesen Reto, and Rick Romea for their
thoughtful response to my Raptor ID query.

The concensus is pretty much towards the male Northern Harrier because of
the lightness of the gray. The barred tail? ...Quien Sabe? This is my week
for raptors. Coming home from an 7-hour birding trip Saturday (our Audubon
chapter's birdathon day) I had a very good look at a dark morph red-tail.
Is it unusual for a dark morph to have no change of color from back to
tail? No bands this time! This bird was almost a chocolate brown - head,
back and tail. No steaking, no reddish coloration anywhere. Didn't have the
band or breast patch in front. From underneath the leading edges of the
wings were dark and the rest somewhat lighter. This time I was able to get
out of the car and also had my good binos with me. If there were dark
patagial marks they didn't stand out from the rest. This was one of the
largest RTs I've seen - for what THAT'S worth! There's a RT dark morph who
hunts around here who's really dark with a brick red breast patch; I see
that one often enough to be pretty familiar with it and this sighting was
another individual. There are a number of raptors around here. On a regular
basis, depending upon the time of year, there are Red-tails, Northern
Harriers, Rough-legs and Kestrals along the road I travel to work. I know
that others birders have seen Swainsons and also some falcons but they
don't hang out on "my" road (at least, I haven't seen them). I don't know
if I mentioned that part of my drive to work every day is a 6.5 mile
stretch on a small country road in flat wheatland country...great place for
raptors to see and be seen.

Thanks again for all the info.

Regards, Joanne