{"id":13932,"date":"2020-08-26T00:52:42","date_gmt":"2020-08-26T06:52:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/?p=13932"},"modified":"2020-08-26T00:52:42","modified_gmt":"2020-08-26T06:52:42","slug":"an-impossibility-of-red-taileds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/2020\/08\/26\/an-impossibility-of-red-taileds\/","title":{"rendered":"An Impossibility Of Red-Taileds"},"content":{"rendered":"

BY HARRY WEEKES<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"
The red-tailed hawk (Buteo jamaicensis) is a bird of prey that breeds throughout most of North America. Photo credit: Peter K Burian, accessed via wikipedia.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In early August I received a text: \u201cHave you actually figured out how to ID raptors?\u201d<\/p>\n

My response: \u201cNo. Still a total failure. I just say \u2018red-tailed hawk.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Then, about a week later, I got into a conversation about raptors in the Sawtooth Valley, specifically that there were, all of a sudden, a bunch of raptors out Pole Creek Road. There were some big raptors (maybe immature golden eagles?), some others with heavily barred tails and faces (maybe Peregrine falcons?), and then just \u201cmore than a normal amount of raptors\u201d (maybe some special, late-summer, Tolkien-esque bird summit?).<\/p>\n

This led to my usual verbal field trips\u2014where I ask anyone who will listen about the topic in which I am interested. There are always surprises in these conversations in that, invariably, someone will light up and say, \u201cAre you talking about those huge birds circling around?\u201d Or, \u201cYeah, I saw a frog at the Indian Creek pond.\u201d Or, \u201cI saw a rabbit all stretched out, too.\u201d In other words, no matter what I ask, I find someone who has caught a glimpse of what I am talking about. Mostly these are adults, and the exchange is always filled with a kind of wonder and sense of the conspiratorial\u2014\u201cWe are in this together.\u201d<\/p>\n

When I get enough hits on these verbal field trips, a physical one usual emerges. \u201cWell, if everyone is telling me there are \u2018like, 40,000 Sandhill cranes\u2019 in the Triangle, I am heading to the Triangle.\u00a0 <\/span>If there is a little group of bucks in velvet that seem to sneak out of a hidden canyon in Indian Creek and wade into the alfalfa, but only at a certain light, I am going to make sure to drive home at that time.<\/p>\n

So, texts were sent, times were discussed, and one Sunday morning I was riding shotgun, creeping along a jeep trail with binoculars, a spotting scope, two field guides, and a \u201cHawks in Flight\u201d book.<\/p>\n

Birds are known by many collective nouns. A group of golden eagles is called a convocation. A group of Peregrine falcons is called a bazaar. A group of red-tailed hawks could be called a frustration. Or a confusion. Or a \u201cThese can\u2019t all be red-taileds, can they?\u201d<\/p>\n

The first thing you notice about red-tailed hawks when you are flipping through \u201cSibley Birds West\u201d is that they occupy two pages, not one. This is because there are light morphs, dark morphs, Krider\u2019s, Harlan\u2019s, partial albinos, and about every possible color combination of brown, reddish and white. Throw in the fact that the adults and juveniles look different and here is the picture that developed. The Peregrine falcon? An immature red-tailed with a heavily barred tail, spending most of its time in the burned trees. The immature golden eagles? Mature adult red-taileds, with poorly filled-in wings, making them look like immature birds.<\/p>\n

As with so many things, I ended at the beginning. \u201cHave you actually figured out how to ID raptors?\u201d Nope. But I can tell you where there are a bunch of red-tailed hawks. And if you want to go there, it is worth every minute.<\/p>\n

Harry Weekes is the founder and head of school at The Sage School in Hailey.\u00a0 <\/span>This is his 48th year in the Wood River Valley, where he lives with Hilary and two of their three baby adults\u2014Penelope and Simon. The other member of the flock, Georgia, is currently fledging at Davidson College in North Carolina.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BY HARRY WEEKES In early August I received a text: \u201cHave you actually figured out how to ID raptors?\u201d My response: \u201cNo. Still a total failure. I just say \u2018red-tailed hawk.\u2019\u201d Then, about a week later, I got into a conversation about raptors in the Sawtooth Valley, specifically that there were, all of a sudden, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13933,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","_pvb_checkbox_block_on_post":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,34,36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13932","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-commentary","category-science-place","category-slider"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13932","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13932"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13932\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}