Hmmmm. Let's see, both the hide and tail have good fly tying material. I have it! He should have killed the squirrel and brought it to the back door. I could have taken the body from him, skinned it and barbequed the meat and given that back to him to eat with my compliments. Then I would have had some good fly tying material and he would have had a sumptuous dinner, for a hawk that is.
I would vote for Gosshawk. They are big enough to take squirrels and they like song birds too. The male will hunt robins in the summer, skin them, and take them back to momma sitting on the eggs.
Bob
Bobinmich,
I would have to go with cycler68 on this one. That looks very much like an immature Red-tailed Hawk.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...squirrel07.jpg
Best regards, Dave S.
Dave,
Could be. You'd have to see him fly.
http://www.peregrine-foundation.ca/r...goshawk43.html
Bob
Agree Bob , It's a tough call, but I think we would be able to call it in the air (pardon the pun). Your photo of the immature Goshawk shows those white eyebrows, which is a key ID feature on the mature Goshawk. Goshawks have red eyes at maturity also. If John J. Audubon was alive, he'd straighten us both out! LOL!!!
Best Regards, Dave S.
Wow, how cool is that! I really like photo number 3. There is something very wild and beautiful about him in that picture. Even the squirrel served the role he was put her to serve.
Thank you for sharing.
Bob & fishdog one of the reasons I think the hawk is a redtail is they are one of the commonest hawks around here. It also seems that most of the people who see the pics think it's a redtail. If you look closely at the tail in photo #1 you'll see that the feathers are a different color than the rest of the body.
Last edited by cycler68; 11-02-2010 at 04:44 PM.
cycler68,
I'm convinced. It seems to be a Red-tail. You'll have to submit an up-date photo when that bird matures! LOL!!! Here's a little bird ID puzzler I had a number of years ago in the U.P. of Michigan. I had a bunch of bird feeders set up off my back deck, which I spent a lot of time watching. I started having a small flock of very small birds that I could not ID, visit the feeders (this is winter time). I looked through all my bird books - nothing! Something was familiar about this bird, but I couldn't put my finger on it - I was really stumped. I was a member of the Audubon Society at the time and would receive a magazine by the Michigan Audubon periodically. Well, the winter issue arrived, and there on the front cover was my mystery bird. They turned out to be Goldfinches in their winter coats I was very surprised, because I had no idea that they had a different winter coat, and really did not think that they wintered in the U.P.either. What threw me off was that all these birds looked like the olive colored female Goldfinches and I figured that was not very likely. After all, where were all the bright yellow males. Well, you learn something new every day.
Best Regards, Dave S.
such beautiful creatures! Thanks for the photos!