ID please

Photo taken recently near Anahuac NWR near Houston. I was thinking juvenile Red-tailed Hawk but this one was really dark. Would appreciate any help. The "Larger Photo" is another view of the same bird.

juvenile melanistic ("Harlan's") red-tailed hawk. Irides are in process of darkenimg...
Dave Graham, East River, SD

White 'U' at base of tail suggests a Juvenile Gray Hawk.

Dark red-tail IMO.

I agree on the dark red-tailed hawk

Gentlemen, I do appreciate your expert opinions. If you have Peterson Field Guides : Hawks of North America by William S. Clark/ Brian K wheeler, please open page 46, 47 and compare it with the larger photo. It says: 'Juvenile Gray Hawks appear dark brown above with white U at base of tail and 6 or more progressively wider bands toward tips'.

This is absolutely not a Gray Hawk.

As a first clue, habitat is as important as any field mark, and it is perfect for a red-tail but would be unusual for a Gray Hawk which sticks to riparian woods.

Note the quote that juvie Gray Hawks have "progressively wider bands toward tips." On this bird the dark bands are the same width all the way to the tip, lacking the wider dark bands of the Gray Hawk. Juvie Gray Hawks show much more white on the face and underparts than this bird. The white at the base of the tail is fine for a juvie redtail.

Also look at the structure of the bird. This bird has long wings, extending to the tip of the tail. This is what one expects in a redtail and is all wrong for Gray Hawk. True to their preference for forested habitat, Gray Hawks have a more accipiter-like build, with a long tail that projects well beyond the wingtips.

The case for Gray Hawk is getting hung up on a single field mark (white at the base of the tail, which is not even exclusive to Gray Hawk) at the expense of lots of other clues.

As for the Harlan's vs regular dark redtail, I'm not sure and would want to see more pics. I'd be interested if anyone has experience with juvenile White-tailed Hawk, which would also be an intriguing possibility down there.

In my enthusiasm for rejecting Gray Hawk, I think maybe I've been too quick to discount White-tailed Hawk. I'm going to look into that tonight when I have time...

To help with this question, I have multiple shots of this bird and will post some more after I get home this evening. I watched him for about 45 minutes waiting for a take-off shot and took a lot.

here are some other shots showing some other feathers.

another view

one more

one more

thanks, Mark. any shots of the full extended wingtip from the takeoff?

I'll delve into some resources here in the next couple hours.

Brian, there is a fully extended wing photo. Go up to the original photo up above and click on 'View Larger Photo" which is yet another view. Thanks.

Here it is again.

OK—all quotes and references that follow are from Brian Wheeler’s Raptors of Western North America. (There’s also and Eastern one, but they overlap extensively, with only a few species that are only in one book or the other). I believe this book may be out of print, but if you can find a used copy, it is by far the most complete reference on raptors that I’ve seen, detailing all the different plumages for each age, color moph, geographic variant, etc.

After taking a detailed look, I feel pretty good about saying this is indeed a juvenile White-tailed Hawk. There were a few things that caught my eye initially just looking at the pictures, particularly what looked like a rather slender, tapered wing tip, reminiscent of a Swainson’s Hawk and unlike the broad hands on a Red-tailed Hawk, as well as the dark eye and long wings and legs.

Here’s what Wheeler lists (p. 296) as defining species traits for White-tailed Hawk, my comments in bold.

Head: bluish green cere check. Dark brown irises check. Body: long yellow tarsi check out the long legs on Mark’s bird—these do not look like any Red-tailed Hawk I’ve ever seen, and looking at pictures of White-tailed Hawk in Wheeler look perfect. Wings: Long and pointed can’t tell for certain because the wing tip is cut off in the flight shot, but it certainly looks that way to me, based on hundreds of hours of watching and counting migrating hawks. In flight, wings are narrow and “pinched in” at the junction of the body, bow outward on the trailing edge of the broad secondaries, then taper to pointed wingtips again this seems like a good fit. The longest primaries are p7 and 8 can’t tell here with the wingtip cut off but it seems to fit (note the outermost primary is p10, and as you move in toward the body, p9, p8, etc. On perched birds the wingtips extend well beyond the tail tip check.

Here’s selections from what Wheeler lists as defining traits for Red-tailed Hawk (including Harlan’s) (p. 319) first, then for juvenile Red-tailed Hawks (including Harlan’s) specifically (p. 327-8), again, my comments added in bold.

Wings—In flight, rounded wingtips with p6-8 being nearly the same length and the secondaries bowing outward again, hard to say for certain with the wingtip cut off, but this bird does not appear to have the rounded broad wingtip of a redtail to me

Juvenile Traits: Head—Iris is pale: yellow, gray, or brown, rarely medium brown eye color seems not to fit, or to be rare at best. Cere is pale bluish green or pale green. probably ok for either Wings (dorsal)—In flight the primaries and respective greater coverts are paler than the secondaries and their respective coverts and create a large pale panel on the outer half of the wing. All subspecies and morphs have distinct black barring on the secondaries: narrow on light morphs, fairly wide on darker morphs. [secondaries look fine, but this bird lacks the pale panel on the outer wing.] Note: On all races, the wingtips of perched birds are moderately shorter or much shorter than the tail tip. [again, this bird’s wings are longer than the tail tip]

So I’m pretty confident saying that this is indeed a juvenile White-tailed Hawk, although it’s a species I’ve never seen. Ebird.org shows quite a few winter records for the species in and around Anahuac NWR.

This turned out to be quite a treatise, hopefully it was as interesting for others as it was for me. I haven’t studied an individual buteo this closely in quite a while.

Brian, Thank you for the excellent explanation. I agree with you about Juvenile White-tailed Hawk.
Thanks Mark for posting the photos.

Nicely done, Mark and Brian.

The additional views help a lot and show the value of getting multiple angles on any troublesome bird.