Subject: [Tweeters] Osprey color variation?
Date: Jun 23 12:28:39 2010
From: Kelsey Byers - kjbyers at uw.edu


Hi all,

Walking home from the bus near my house this morning (Laurelhurst in
Seattle, so not too far from the water), I spotted a soaring white bird
and did a double-take - not a gull but a raptor! I took down some
fieldmarks in the few minutes before it soared off into the distance. It
initially looked like an osprey, but there are a few aberrant issues, so
I'm trying to figure out if it's a light-morph osprey (do these exist?) or
if my ID is totally wrong.

*Long* wings - osprey or falcon-proportion. Underwings nearly pure white
with a red-tail-like "V" of much darker (dark brown/black) color between
the secondaries and the coverts. I didn't notice black primaries, but
they may have been there. The head of the bird had some black (I think),
but unlike an osprey the back was a very light brown color, like that of a
barn owl. I didn't see an obvious white rump like a harrier, but I
couldn't see most of its back.

So... has anyone seen an osprey in a lighter morph? Or is it something
else?

Thanks a ton!

Kelsey Byers
Department of Biology
------------
kjbyers at uw.edu
(978)460-3581
KB1ONA