Yard Critter of the Week - Winter Hawk

Winter Hawk

This bird visited our yard the other day, leaving and returning several times. It was during the time the deer carcass was in the yard, but I did not see it on the carcass. I've not seen it since.

My original thought was that it was a Red-shouldered Hawk. They've visited the yard and breed in the area. And that's how I reported it to eBird. But when processing the images I thought the facial and breast patterns didn't seem quite right for Red-shouldered.

So I sent it out to some birding friends. One said "I don't know!". Another agreed with my first instinct and said Read-shouldered. She noted that she had a similar bird on her Salem county raptor survey that had stumped them. She provided a link to an image of a similar bird.

And that link led to this link, of a Winter Hawk in John J. Audubon's Birds of America.

And that was my bird.

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Thanks to Linda Widdop for confirming the ID. And to Marty Dellwo and Sandra Keller for their comments as well. Also thanks to Adrian Binns and Richard Crossley for confirming the ID as well.

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You can find all of the Yard Critter posts listed here.