[Tweeters] Kent Valley Northern Red-tailed Hawk

[Jim Betz via Tweeters]

Kevin,

   THANKS for the link to this excellent article.  I read it thru - 
fairly quickly - and definitely studied

the photos and captions.  I have to admit that I'm still confused - I'm 
pretty sure I've seen RTH

that have coloring that is the same or at least close to the 
descriptions.  In fact, I'm even more

convinced that this color markings difference is within what I consider 
to be well within the range

of variations that I've seen.


All,

   This brings up further questions:

   What exactly is a sub-species?".  Can/do they interbreed with other 
birds of the same species?   If they

can interbreed then, to my way of thinking at least, that makes the 
whole sub-species thing "weak".

   Is range/frequency of occurence of a color variation in a geographic 
area enough to distiguish a sub-species?

   I have often heard of/read about color variations that are regional - 
even in RTH.  But, should a bird

wander away from its original territory - does that make it a different 
subspecies that is far from home - or

is it simply a color variation?

   With respect to RTH are we saying that the Eastern/Western/Northern 
birds rarely, if ever, change areas?

   What actually happens in the geographic areas where more than one 
sub-species is near each other?


                                   - I agree with Kevin - this is a 
rabbit hole ... Jim

On 9/8/2024 11:25 PM, Kevin Lucas wrote:

> Jim,

> For quite a while I've read few Tweeters posts, but read yours tonight 

> and started down that rabbit hole. Here's a link  to an article by 

> well respected experts that might be of help to you. I only just 

> started into it.

> https://northernredtails.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/rth_aabieticiola_north_american_birds_march_2014.pdf

> Regards,

> Kevin Lucas

> Yakima County, WA

>

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