On The Road – Albatrossity – Krider’s Hawk

There are four generally recognized plumage characters that, if you find any three of them on any one hawk, you can be pretty sure that you are looking at a Krider’s Hawk. One of those is an extremely white head, particularly on the crown, often accompanied by a very pronounced darker malar stripe (aka moustache). This adult bird shows that one pretty well. Click here for larger image.

Another field mark, which is seen pretty well in the bird above, is the presence of substantial white mottling on the upperwing coverts. This adult bird in flight shows it as well, particularly in the lower part of the back (scapulars). Click here for larger image.

The underside of a Krider’s Hawk is usually very pale, with a reduced or even absent bellyband and very pale/rufous patagial mark (the darker leading edge of the wing between the bird’s body and the bend of the wing). Click here for larger image.

The final character, usually very visible in the field, is the pale tail. This is the same bird as the one directly above, showing a washed out reddish tail, and the base of the tail is white. Usually at least the basal 1/3 will be very light, but intergrades with Eastern redtails often will have redder tails with much less white. Click here for larger image.

Two other typical characters are seen in this adult individual, the very skinny or even absent black bars in the flight feathers, and the faint rufous wash to the underside of the bird’s body. Not seen in all examples of this subspecies, but they show up often enough to be a very helpful clue. Click here for larger image.

Juvenile Harlan’s Hawks (birds in their first winter) are also very pale on the underside, but sometimes can be confused with light-morph juveniles of the Krider’s subspecies. But they are quite different when seen from the top. Here is a Krider’s juvenile at left, and a light-morph Harlan’s juvenile at right. Light tail vs dark tail. Totally white crown vs streaky brown and white crown. Large and obvious white panels in the outer wings in Krider’s Hawk vs darker versions in the Harlan’s Hawk. Should you ever be fortunate enough to see these together, now you know how to tell them apart! Click here for larger image.

Here’s another view of those outer wing panels and pale tail, in a textbook-level example of a juvenile Krider’s Hawk. This one was mentioned on the Kansas Birding Facebook group, along with some low-resolution phone screenshots, and it looked so cool that I contacted the person who posted it and wondered if there were additional or higher-resolution images to see if it was Harlan’s or Krider’s. Not really, as it turns out, so I asked if I could come visit the farm where it was seen, where her dad lived, and see if I could get some better photos. That happened, I had a great trip down to Woodson County KS, met some great people, and photographed this bird. As a thank-you I made some metal prints of their favorite images and sent them those a couple of weeks later. I know some folks love to complain about Facebook, and sometimes I am one of those, but the communities that have been built on those group pages would be hard to replace. Click here for larger image.

Another juvenile individual, seen from the rear, showing that pale finely-barred and white-based tail, white crown, and extensive white on the upperwings. Click here for larger image.

The pale yellow eye and extensive white underside of this youngster makes for a stunning bird, in my opinion. Click here for larger image.

Final shot of a juvenile bird from this winter, with attitude. Click here for larger image.