Hello all
A few days ago, as I was driving down one of the back roads near some of the oil refineries here in Corpus; I began to look up at the tops of the various power lines and utility poles, as I've become used to doing; and spotted a Red tail hawk sitting on a power line. I only managed to get this one perching shot, as this animal took off quickly, but I did manage to pull off a shot immediately after he/she took off.
At first I thought it was just a normal Red-Tail until it spread it's wings, and I noticed that it had a large amount of orange all over most of it's body.
I looked it up and discovered that it was not so unusual after all, but was a "Western light morph of the Red tailed hawk" apparently they comprise about 20 percent of the western population.
Canon EOS 30D, Canon EF 500mm f4L IS, with Canon EF 1.4x II TC
1. This is an adult Light morph Red-tailed Hawk, and this is the only "perching on a wire" shot that I could get, before he/she took off I really don't like this shot that much, but I included it to show that there is nothing unusual about this bird as it perched there.
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2. This shot was taken immediately after the animals mad dash to get out of there, notice all the orange or rufous plumage on this animal.
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3. Here is another shot of that same animal, taken a few days later.
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4. I managed to capture a few shots of an Eastern Red Tailed Hawk, these shots are provided for comparisons purposes.
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5. Frontal view, of an Eastern Red-tailed Hawk. After I looked the animal up in pics 1 and 2; I discovered that the Red-tailed Hawk is one of the most variable Raptors in North America.
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Red-tailed Hawk Morphs:
Eastern
Western
Western light morph
Western dark morph
Southwestern
Krider's
Harlan's
Thanks for looking.
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