Hello again, tweetsters. Sorry for the delay of this report--I surely
wish other birders could see/could have seen this bird!

As Deborah Raymond and I were driving through Robinson Canyon, up and over
a ridge, and down through Watt CAnyon (Joe Watt Canyon? is there more
than one Watt Canyon?) west of Ellensburg on Monday, 24 May, we saw a
mystery raptor.

The shape was that of a buteo soaring; the underside of the body (mainly
wings) was a mottled light brown. But the most striking feature of the
bird was the marking on the wings. I saw it on both the underside and
upperside (?) of the wings, but as I recall the mark was more distinctive
on the upperside of the wings. And the marking was a thin "vertical"
(that is, going from leading edge to trailing edge of wing) white stripe
closer to the wingtip than to the bird's body. To me it looked just like
the white stripe on a Common Nighthawk's wing, but the body shape and size
were definitely those of a buteo. I think it was Red-tailed Hawk size.

We saw the bird at near midday of a sunny day. I think I got a better
view than did Deborah, even though I was driving :)

When I checked the ID books I had later, (NAT'L GEOG GUIDE; PETERSON'S
HAWKS; HAWKS IN FLIGHT) of course nothing looked a lot like my impression
of what I'd seen. The image that came closest was a small b/w photo in
HAWKS IN FLIGHT of a Red-shouldered Hawk soaring with some other raptor
species. There was an indication of the wing stripes there, but
more close-up photos of Red-shouldered Hawks showed the white very near
the wingtip and sort-of rounded around the end of the wing.

Have any other tweetsters seen a raptor anything like my description?
Any idea what it might be?

By the way, we went to the Robinson Canyon area in search of the Golden
Eagle reported there by Deborah Wisti-Peterson (thanks for that great
report, Deborah). We did not see the Golden Eagle that day, but we did
see one of the species that Deborah Wisti-Peterson said she had missed:
we saw two Mourning Doves standing at the side of the road, either in one
of the canyons or on the ridge between.

I should say, in case others might want to go there, that we were in a
Ford Escort wagon, no special equipment for traveling on marginal-quality
roads (narrow dirt with lots of sharp rocks, some water holes in road).
I think I wouldn't recommend that anyone else do that with the same kind
of vehicle unless they know the area really well and are prepared for
getting stranded.

Please send any replies to me, or cc me when emailing tweeters. Thank
you. --Anna Coles, Seattle acoles at u.washington.edu