?Dark Morph

[floraphile]

near Alamo, NV.  Oct. 2019.   I had earlier posted the second pic, confirmed as Red-Tailed Hawk.  My question is:  Would this fellow be considered a Dark Morph, Juvenile b/c of the pale tail & secondaries?

 

[Jefferson Shank]

Is it dark enough for a dark morph?

[AlexHenry]

There's a whole spectrum, its kind of a false dichotomy to say "light morph" and "dark morph", in that Red-tails can have completely snowy white breast, belly, and underwing coverts, or completely solid chocolate brown breast, belly, and underwing coverts, or literally anywhere in between. 

That being said, this bird is nowhere near as dark as they come, so not really a classic "dark morph", although definitely darker than average. 

I like the rufous morphs we get out here in California, which are intermediate calurus/alascensis with bright rufous chest and chocolate brown belly band...

Edited March 5, 2020 by AlexHenry

[floraphile]

Thank you both for the infomation.  ?     

[AlexHenry]

They can be anywhere in between these two, or even darker or even lighter. It is very variable but is more of a spectrum than two distinct phases:

[akandula]

Very cool photo Alex. I've noticed that the more variation in genotype = the more successful the species = the more common the species.

This makes identifying even the most common birds very challenging.