Observers: Chris Howard
Email: choward@telis.org
Remote Name: 65.244.205.238
Date: 04/15/2005
Time: 11:46 AM -0400
While driving on Hwy 395 yesterday (14 Apr) there was a dark-bellied, long winged hawk landing in the Fish Springs alfalfa fields. I stopped and got looks figuring it was a dark morph Swainson's Hawk. The best looks I had was it flying low and away over the fields. It looked all chocolaty with hardly any contrast anywhere. However, it looked as if it had white undertail coverts which wrapped ever-so-slightly around to the sides of the upper tail coverts. Anyway, I was glad to read in NGS, that white undertail coverts are a mark for dark morph Swainson's. Very sharp-looking bird.