The bird is a Broad-winged Hawk, yes, but it's not of the dark morph. The dark appearance in the photos is apparently just a silhouette effect of seeing the bird against the very bright sky. Look at the photos carefully, especially the sixth one in the series, and you can clearly see patterning of dark barring on the paler background of the underparts. Dark-morph adult Broad-wings are uniformly dark on the underside of the body. Thanks for posting these photos; they're very instructive for showing the variation in wing posture for Broad-wings in flight, and for showing how apparent colors in photographs can be misleading. Kenn Kaufman Rocky Ridge, Ohio ----- Original Message ----- From: "Matthew Valencic" <[log in to unmask]> To: <[log in to unmask]> Sent: Monday, April 21, 2008 7:55 AM Subject: [Ohio-birds] Dark hawk identified > Well, the very experienced (EXPERT) birders have weighed in and the > unanimous agreement is Dark Morph Broad Wing and supposedly very rare! > > > > Thanks to all of you for your help. > > > > For those who did not look at the pictures you can find them at > http://picasaweb.google.com/mvalencic/UnknownHawk. > > > > Regards, > > > > Matt Valencic > > Chagrin Falls, OH > > > ______________________________________________________________________ > > Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society. > Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list. > Additional discussions can be found in our forums, at > www.ohiobirds.org/forum/. > > You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at: > http://listserv.muohio.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDS > Send questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask] ______________________________________________________________________ Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society. Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list. Additional discussions can be found in our forums, at www.ohiobirds.org/forum/. You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDS Send questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask]