Need Buteo ID Assistance!

[JCRBackCountry 1]

Location: Hampton CT

Date: September 1, 2019

Any thoughts as to what type of hawk this is? The tail narrows it down to a few suspects.. My thought is perhaps a juv. Red-shouldered.

[Kerri 354]

I agree with juvenile red shouldered. You can just see hints of those red shoulders starting. Adults would have a fine orange barring on the chest and prominent white and black checkering on the wings. They are a fairly large hawk especially the females. I have an adult that lives in my swamp. She snacks on all sorts of swamp creatures including snakes, crawdads and frogs. 

[JCRBackCountry 1]

Thanks for the input! This was a very similar environment to what you described and I agree with the hints of red in the shoulders. Young hawks are challenging to identify! 

[akandula 2,786]

I am leaning Broad-winged on this one. Red-shouldered, from my knowledge, would have pale barred secondaries and usually be leaner and have more crisp streaks on the underside. Also, I would think Red-shouldered would have a thinner banded tail. I do see red-tinted shoulders, but Broad-winged also show this, so this is not a very good ID feature. 

Maybe @The Bird Nuts, who is good at separating these two species, can confirm one way or the other.

[The Bird Nuts 3,784]

Yeah, my impression is Broad-winged as well.  The sparse breast streaking also points to Broad-winged.

[Kerri 354]

@JCRBackCountry sorry for the misidentification. Thank you @akandula@The Bird Nuts :)

[JCRBackCountry 1]

No worries, I agreed with your thoughts. Thanks for all the good ID info from everyone.