This has been a challenge, the "birding" aspect of chronicling my walks. I have to admit to some laziness on this level but I have decided to get my act together and not jump to conclusions on identifying birds. Also, as stated at least once before, if you come across any of my photos, know these birds better than I do and would like to offer corrections I'm completely receptive to this. I already made two corrections I believe to now be accurate on yesterday's walk report.
Here's one of those again for today.
I'm sure now this "hawk" I ID'd yesterday is not a hawk at all. It's a falcon. All along I was having a problem with the dark streak offset by white coming down from the eyes but yesterday's images weren't nearly as clear as those taken today. For s second time I'm changing the ID on this. Pretty darn sure this time it's a Prairie falcon (Falco mexicanus), this after continuing to question the size reference for what I had before which was a Merlin, Falco columbarius. That's another thing I find in a lot of online bird identification sites. They reference size relative from one similar bird to another but often don't give actual dimensions.
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In flight the distinction becomes much more apparent for me. A red-tailed hawk would, for example, have its tail fanned. Also I'm pretty sure I have the under-wing pattern nailed down for a red-tailed hawk.
If birds could simply label themselves like so, things would be so much easier.
That's it for today. I got out a little earlier but walked the same 8.79 km as yesterday. It was a little rougher toward the last 2 km so I decided not to take on any more distance plus it was really windy toward the end. I could feel it pushing me back on the homestretch and I'm a fairly formidable opponent as people go.
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