On a dark and gloomy day, this distant hawk looked different from the usual.
Red-tailed Hawks are the usual Buteos. The adults are of course distinctive with their brick red tails, but ones under a year don’t have this tell-tale tail. While the first two images aren’t particularly good photos, they do tell us a lot of things. The “window” arcs at the base of the primaries, the narrow stripes on the long–for a Buteo–tail both point to a juvenile Red-shouldered Hawk.
The patagial marks, dark leading edges of the wing from throat to the first joint of the wing, are also missing. All ages of Red-tails have these.
Red-tails come in different flavors. I ran into a couple with some red-highlights. (Had to double-check they weren’t Red-shouldered.)
Backyard and Beyond 
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