Red-tailed Hawk at Great Meadows Charlestown NH

Driving down Rt 5 south of Charlestown NH I stopped to look over the waterfowl at Great Meadows when this hawk shows up out in the field and was just hanging there Hover-Hunting.

With the sun in my eyes I thought Rough-legged Hawk hover-hunting. The hawk then flew over to a snag right next to the road. I got this image and realized that this hawk could be a Red-tailed Hawk which also hover-hunts sometimes. The difference is the height the red-tailed was at , about a third of the distance closer to the ground then a Rough-legged Hawk would hover-hunt at. From this new angle I could see the tail banding and the what I call spangled breast feathers of the Red-tail as apposed to the dark more solid belly and single dark tail band of the Rough-legged hawk. So if I hadn't tried to get a photo of this bird on the snag I would have ID-ed this bird as a Rough-legged hawk an been 100% wrong . Which is one of the many reasons that I love birding, your always learning something new about the birds your watching... This last image I got driving home on rt103 in Rockingham Vt, the hawk was gliding along in big circles which allowed me to get a good image.

Enjoy

Peter

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