Interesting Hawk - Ft Collins (Larimer)

[David Wade]

Greetings birders,

While driving to work this afternoon, I was on Mountain Ave, close to  the traditional Turkey Vulture roost  of Ft Collins when I briefly saw a large, dark and raptor-like bird with lighter colored secondaries swoop through some trees. I only had glimpse of it but I was certain it was a Turkey Vulture, it looked right, right place, definitely too early but yeah, TV.  Wow! Turkey Vulture! that's crazy, it's still February isn't it, I thought to myself, I quickly pulled over to safely enter an ebird list. There, I saw it again flying to the north being harassed by some Crows. I had a lousy view due to the angle and all the tree tops but it was enough to tell that I was looking at a hawk and not a Turkey Vulture. It's probably just a dark morphed Red-tailed Hawk but I can't get over how much it looked like a Turkey Vulture - I was certain it was - could it have been a Zone-tailed Hawk?

I'm throwing that out there on the slim chance a tropical Zone-tailed Hawk is flying around northern Colorado in February - at least a few more eyes will be looking for it.

David Wade
Ft Collins