We saw the Harlan's hawk that was reported several days ago by the birders
who were at Neah Bay for the zone-tailed hawk.

It was hard to find: we drove up and down Makah Passage Road along the
grassland between that road and the Cape Flattery Road about 10-12 times at
various times of day before we found it. It was in the grass just south of
the Wa'Atch River bridge at 10 AM. It flew across the Cape Flattery Road
and hunted along the firs on the slope behind that road. We would not have
seen it if we had not seen it take off.



It does not have the tail pattern that is shown in the Sibley and the
National Geo guides. I remembered that Harlan's hawks have remarkable
variability in their tail patterns. William Clark the hawk expert wrote a
wonderful discussion of this in the ABA's magazine Birding, with photos. If
you have access to old issues of Birding, the reference is 2009, vol 41,
pages 30-36.



William Clark has another interesting article that I found by searching for
"Is HARLAN'S HAWK a subspecies of Red-tailed Hawk?" I used Google Scholar.



More info than you needed but it's here in case that you find this hawk as
interesting as I do.



Will Risser, Portland