Paul-- Thanks for the great information. I also posed this question to the ID-Frontiers email list. Based on those responses, it appears that the best we can say is that this matches the expectations for a western (calurus) Red-tailed Hawk, but it perhaps isn't possible to entirely eliminate the possibility of a dark morph among albieticola. However, it seems more likely that this is a member of the western subspecies (Wheeler cites 17 records for Ohio, I believe), which is how I've reported it to eBird. The full thread from ID-Frontiers is available here: http://birding.aba.org/maillist/IDF I've seen this bird on the way home every day since Tuesday, I wish it was in a more accessible location. I want to again acknowledge my wife Dimi for being the first to spot this bird and point it out to me. Blake Mathys --------------------------------- http://blakemathys.com/ --------------------------------- ______________________________________________________________________ Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society. Please consider joining our Society, at www.ohiobirds.org/site/membership.php. Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list. You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at: listserv.muohio.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDS Send questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask]