I spotted this Harlan's Red-tailed Hawk today perched in a tree about 150 feet on the other side of an agricultural field. The one I found several days ago appeared to be a dark morph while this one is more an intermediate morph. Though it's possible that with that darker appearing hawk being high in the sky and back-lit it might have causing my view and photo to look darker on the darker parts of the hawk. Since these are pretty rare in my area it would seem more likely that it would be the same hawk. But I would think I could have seen some of the white on it's breast and underwing coverts if it was this hawk. Maybe the recent high winds have brought two Harlan's to Canon City.
Though not close-up photos, these show some details of this hawk. It's head is brown/black with white streaks and with a white auricular area and throat. It's upper tail is reddish on the distal portion and whitish basally. Brian Wheeler, in
Raptors of Western North America, states: "When seen at close range, most
harlani have some tinge of rufous on the dorsal surface of the distal portion of the rectrices." It's white breast has a lot of dark streaking as found on more intermediate plumaged Harlan's. SeEtta
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