[Birdtalk] A tale of two hawks

[Tim Avery]

Thanks to everyone who has responded publicly and privately on this bird. 

I can honestly say that when I saw the bird the first time I simply looked at it, said Red-shouldered and that was that.  I didn't bother to look closely, at the bird, as in the evening light it looked superficially like a RSHA.  Call it being purely lazy.  Or call it sloppy birding, either way I would like to apologize for not taking a closer look at the bird when I first went to see it. I will take a different road than others and would venture that there is no Red-shouldered Hawk hanging out in Farmington, but an odd Red-tailed (one with a pattern very much like a Red-shouldered), that has fooled everyone who went to look for it.

The fact that no one caught on earlier brings up a phenomenon that I think a lot of us get caught up in.  A bird is reported, we go to look for it, and see it!  And often we don't take the time to look at the bird, study its field marks closely.  And making it even more difficult is when the report comes from experienced observers. 

In this case after the initial time seeing it, I saw it three more times and never once took to actually looking at the bird. Truly what I would call a humbling experience, and showing that just because it looks like something, and maybe even acts like something, it can still be something else.  Doesn't matter how many Red-tailed Hawks I have seen, or how few Red-shouldered, not taking the time to work out the ID based off every detail of the bird was jsut lazy on my part! Looks like its back to the books!

Good Birding

Tim
Salt Lake City, Utah
tanager at timaverybirding.com
http://www.timaverybirding.com
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