As well as a few others and still can’t figure out how to find it. Does Colibri or someone have a recommendation for a website? I can trot over to the bookstore later, but as I said, it’s fresh in my mind now.
He was wheeling over our building this morning. A crow kept dive-bombing him, but he was kind of ignoring it…it was rather amusing. He had a bare yellowish belly, tapering towards a gold-ish brown on the wingtips, and a brownish head. I only saw him from below so I can’t describe him much more than that or tell how big he was. I do live in NY, so I need NY hawks.
Borders et al will also have an assortment of field guides; look for the ones that have illustrations of hawks in flight, preferably in color. The Golden Field Guide is IMO the best field guide out there.
I would also call your local Audubon Society chapter and ask them what hawk you were likely to have seen over your house. They’ll know.
I don’t use websites much for ID, so I’m afraid I’m not too familiar with what’s available. DDG’s looks like a reasonable place to start.
Hawks unfortunately are one of the toughest groups of birds to identify. While occasionally species may have a distinctive field mark (the red tail of the adult Red-tailed Hawk), most require careful attention to size, shape, flight style, and what are often very subtle plumage features. Many species have several color phases (varying from light to very dark), and juveniles often lack any very distinctive features. Even the best birders can be stumped by raptors, especially one that’s not seen very well.
Thank you both all the same for checking in! Upon some research I think he was a red-tailed hawk, seeing as they are extremely common in Canada & the US, and it looks just like the fourth picture down on this page. But he doesn’t look like the picture in flight.
Tomorrow I plan to call the local Audobon Society as suggested and find out.
Those pictures look different because the first is a rufous/dark-morph juvenile, and the second is a light morph adult, which shows the kind of variation one gets even within the same species.
Since the Red-tail is the most common hawk in your area, and probably the one most often seen in sight, I wouldn’t be surprised that that was what it was. But in order to make a positive ID, you would also need to rule out other common species, such as immatures of Broad-winged Hawk and Red-shouldered Hawk. There are several other possibilities as well.
