Resending this, as it did not go through first time. Hello Minnesota birders,
I need help with this ID. Any opinions on what this could be? This morning, I was driving down Montreal Avenue through the Highland Golf Course when my daughter spotted a large raptor perched on the ground by the road, tearing at something. It was large, perhaps bigger than a RTHA, mostly white with dark brown mottling on its upperparts, a red tail, and light brown streaks on its feathered upper legs and what looked like a mottled brown collar around its neck. See links to photos. We stopped and I took several photographs. My first thought was that it was a leucocistic Red-tailed Hawk but there are several points that don't fit with that ID, including that it seemed a bit bigger and chunkier than RTHA. The other possibility is that it is a (possibly leucocistic) Ferruginous Hawk —which would be amazing. Anything else it could be? See the photos below: 1. https://flic.kr/p/2i5kod8 2. https://flic.kr/p/2i5oMaJ 3. https://flic.kr/p/2i5oNGw RTHA is most likely candidate, and it has a red-tail but could it be Ferruginous Hawk? -legs aren't visible in any of my photos, but the tibia are heavily feathered. -there is no indication of a dark belly band (although if it is a leucocistic RTHA, that might explain it). Might not be visible from the angle I saw it, pretty much as in the photograph. -bill very large relative to size of head -my impression that it was larger than RTHA; quite a beefy looking bird. -Hard to see the extent of the gape, but it seems to reach to below about the midpoint of the eye -the cere is yellow (this seems to be consistently the case with FEHA, less so with RTHA, going by images on the web) Here's an image of FEHA that looks something like this bird in shape: https://twitter.com/badlandsnps/status/793612380689338369 Help with this ID would be greatly appreciated. Thanks! -- Arjun Guneratne Professor of Anthropology & Director of Asian Studies Department of Anthropology Macalester College 1600 Grand Avenue Saint Paul, MN 55105 Phone: (651) 696-6362 Fax: (651) 696-6324 Students who wish to make an appointment to see me during regular office hours, click here <https://calendar.google.com/calendar/selfsched?sstoken=UU5kWlZtMXBRZTdhfGRlZmF1bHR8NDEzNDEzYjFhMGJlYTU5ZTU2ODdlZTA3ZjYxMTg0Y2I>; if these times do not work for you, please email me to make an appointment President, Macalester AAUP All-Faculty Chapter https://www.aaup.org/membership/join Book Review Editor for South Asia, *The Journal of Asian Studies* Website <http://www.macalester.edu/academics/anthropology/facultystaff/arjunguneratne/> Publications <http://works.bepress.com/arjun_guneratne/> ---- Join or Leave mou-net: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives: http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html
