Tundra Migrants

Week 15 brought us 56 observations from 11 species. This pushes the total project observation count to 749. If we continue at this pace, we'd break our 2020 observations count in three weeks. But I say let's we get ambitious. Let's get to 929 by the end of the month!

In regard to the Observation of the Week, I've chosen to spotlight @redband_ and his photo of an intermediate morph Red-tailed Hawk in Kittias County, Washington. I wanted to showcase this because the photo is absolutely fantastic and can be used as a great example to differentiate juvenile intermediate morph Harlan's and Westerns (ssp. calurus). This is a really tough pair to discern but id comes down to two features: the fingers and the tail banding.

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/138170151

1. Harlan's intermediate/dark morph typically have white emarginated primaries (or fingers) with barring on the tips. Western Red-tails always have black primaries. Though this feature will not always guarantee a correct id (due to individual variation), it can resolve about 90% of disputes.

Harlan's:
https://macaulaylibrary.org/asset/398438851
https://macaulaylibrary.org/asset/30995091
https://macaulaylibrary.org/asset/189423231

Western:
https://macaulaylibrary.org/asset/188961501
https://macaulaylibrary.org/asset/178043761
https://macaulaylibrary.org/asset/241040371

1. Tail pattern is super important for a Harlan's. The variation in Harlan's tail is quite a bit more than in Western, but Harlan's almost always have, wavy or slanted tail bands with white "webbing" in the inner margins. Take a look at these tails:

Harlan's:
https://macaulaylibrary.org/asset/440886631
https://macaulaylibrary.org/asset/327964681
https://macaulaylibrary.org/asset/319094701

Western:
https://macaulaylibrary.org/asset/321147631
https://macaulaylibrary.org/asset/321146441
https://macaulaylibrary.org/asset/245729861

Though we haven't gotten a Harlan's for the project yet, they are coming, and I hope you guys get to see some. They are, in my humble opinion, one of the coolest raptors in the world, and it's so unfortunate it's a subspecies of the Red-tailed. But I guess that's why we dream right?

Publicado el 15 de octubre de 2022 por birdwhisperer