October 26, 2012

Wyoming Mystery Hawk

Mystery Hawk

I haven't been able to get out and about in the city the last couple months. The photo above may be the most recent hawk I have seen.

The photo was taken the weekend of Aug. 18 in the Wind River Range in Wyoming at an elevation of about 10,000 feet and just a few miles from the Continental Divide. As it circled overhead several hundred feet away, it seemed huge, bigger than a red-tail. It wasn't until getting a few poor photos onto the computer that I could be sure it wasn't an eagle.

If it's not a red-tail, I've yet to figure out what this hawk is. Other large(r) Wyoming hawks are typically described as preferring more open territory, either prairie or farmland.

I did get a nice long look at a big ferruginous hawk the weekend before this photo was taken. It was in the kind of territory that you'd expect to encounter one, and about 2000 ft lower in elevation than the pic above.