Hi Brad,

Those sound like the patagial tags that are sometimes used on soaring birds
to allow identification of individually marked birds in flight. They
usually have numbers on the tags, though if the bird is far away the
numbers can be hard to see.

It would be worth keeping an eye out for this bird, as I'm sure its
location right now would be useful information to whoever put those tags on
it.

Good birding,
Matt Dufort

On Mon, May 9, 2022 at 14:36 BRAD Liljequist <bradliljequist at msn.com> wrote:


> This was a weird one - looked to be an immature RT Hawk heading north

> above Phinney Ridge in Seattle in thermal spiral - looked to have something

> royal blue attached to the leading edge of I believe both wings. Pretty

> prominent, maybe about 2"x6", but could have been bigger - I was seeing

> from underside. About the color of the bags the NY Times sometimes comes

> in. I was wondering if it was trash that somehow got attached to the bird,

> or a deliberate identifier? Seemed awfully prominent for that. Bird was

> acting if nothing unusual was going on.

>

> ??

>

> Brad Liljequist

> Phinney Ridge

> Seattle

>

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