Beautiful picture, Skybird! And what a grand looking bird!! My guess is a Rough-legged Hawk: http://www.birdsofcolorado.com/Roughie.php. Says they winter in Colorado.

Good luck winning the contest!!

Marj

Dee,

That looks like a juvenile tawny eagle to me, not a hawk. They have the furry legs. Google some images and see what you think. Awesome photos, by the way. Good luck!

Barb

That's an amazing picture! I love hawks. I'm going to agree on the rough-legged hawk.

Treebarb: I believe Tawny eagles are in Africa and Asia only.

Popmama,

Dee let me know I wasn't even on the right continent! I found a pic that looked right, but I was way off.

Barb

Thanks for your suggestion, Misty, and for seconding it, Moma! I had come up with three things I thought were possibilities, one of them being a Krider's red-tail hawk, but the guy on Birds of Colorado says red-tails don't have furry legs, so I guess that rules that one out! (Tho I found pics online where the legs sure looked furry to me!) The other two I'm considering are, as you guys voted, a rough-legged hawk, or a ferruginous hawk. In checking out the pics of both on the BoC site I'm leaning toward the ferruginous hawk at this point. The chest and undersides of mine look whiter than most of the rough-leg pics I'm finding online--but bird pics online can vary so much it's hard to tell what you're looking at! [Or what country they're in! ;-) ] I haven't had time yet, but the BoC guy seems to welcome inquiries, so I think I'm gonna send him my pics and see if he can make a positive identification. I'll be back to let you all know what he says if I get a reply!

In the meantime! You can enter two pics a week in the contest, and if anybody's interested (it sure is dead around here right now!), here are the two I entered last week.

Mother Nature at work! - Yellowstone National Park - 2012

Grand Tetons above Jackson Lake - Grand Teton National Park - 2012

And here are the two I entered just today for this week.

Windsor Castle from the "three sisters" garden - Pipe Spring National Monument - Fredonia, Arizona - 2013

Longhorn! \- Pipe Spring National Monument \- 2013 [](https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/HGZwZUy9_3P8hSSHH9ysdp5h-XJIiF49W2wOUZdk0NQ?feat=embedwebsite) And, assuming I'm not ready to enter the bird pic yet next week, would anybody like to help me decide which two of these three pics I should enter next week? (If anybody clicks on them and sees the captions in WebAlbums, all the asterisks in the captions are there just to help me remember which of my couple dozen rainbow pics I picked as the best!) Rainbow's End! \- Grand View Point Overlook \- Canyonlands National Park, Island in the Sky \- 2011 [](https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/6etRfugbbhJfXBUlzhdZ-6YIyTAiokUxDxbNVJZm8NA?feat=embedwebsite) [](https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/BClw0vKXp7sh4ShAIpsbT6YIyTAiokUxDxbNVJZm8NA?feat=embedwebsite) [](https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/UjNxy1CDitQedqwT7Iw946YIyTAiokUxDxbNVJZm8NA?feat=embedwebsite) Thanks for your help with the birds, and I welcome anybody else who wants to chime in to help me figure out for sure what it is! Skybird Here is a link that might be useful: [Ferruginous Hawk](http://www.birdsofcolorado.com/Ferruginous.php)

Shucks, I'll just say the 1st of the rainbow pix, Skybird. It does a better job showing the rain & blue sky contrasting the rainbow and de-emphasizes that patch of vegetation that looks too much like a helicopter shadow.

You may be right about the Ferruginous hawk ID. They are great BIG guys (or, girls) and that may just be one with "immature" colors. Hawks are polymorphic. That there is a word I didn't even know until I did some reading about hawks!

VERY nice pictures, Skybird!

Steve

Definitely enter one of the rainbow pics.
Love the hawk too. Good luck!

Wonderful pictures, Dee! The hawk is magnificent as are the vistas. Thanks for sharing with us. Good luck!

Wonderful rainbow pictures, skybird! I like the first one best, too.

And what great shots of the hawk... beautiful face! I can't decide which view I like best.

I love the new baby trees at Yellowstone.

I love the baby trees pic too, B2. I really don't think it's gonna win anything, but it's my kind of picture! Half of Yellowstone is baby trees since the fires, and I was taking pics of them all over the place, then when I was heading somewhere one day I noticed that sign just as I was passing it, I came to a screeching halt in the middle of the road, did a U-ee and went back to take some pics of it!

Digit and B2--and anybody else, which of the second and third rainbow pics do you like best? I'm planning to enter two of them, and the first one you both picked is pretty much a shoo-in for me to enter, but I can't decide between the other two! My best-friend-from-Denver-who-now-lives-in New York likes the double rainbow one (second one) best. Anybody around here like one of the other better for some reason?

Sorry about the helicopter-shadow, Digit! It took me a while to figure out what you were looking at, but I way see it now! I checked it out, but there's no way I can crop it to get rid of that, so I'll just have to hope whoever looks at whichever one I finally decide to enter, they won't happen to have whirly birds on their mind when they're looking! ;-) [Yeah, I learned about that polymorph stuff when I started looking up the hawk too!]

Still don't know for sure what the hawk is, and haven't had a chance to email the raptor site guy to see what he thinks, but I have a good month yet to enter pics, so have plenty of time. And if it gets to the end of the contest and I still don't know for sure what it is, I'm gonna enter it anyway! It'll be the first one I'm entering, which I like better because the bird has its head turned a little bit further so the beak is slightly more visible.

This is turning into my own private picture thread, so here are a few more! These are the two I entered on Friday for this week. Both taken at Longhouse Ruin on Wetherill Mesa at Mesa Verde when I was there in 2011. I like the first one because most "ruin pics" only show the ruins themselves but this one shows the canyon too so you get a better "feel" for where the ruins are! And the second one! Well, I've kinda gotten into ladders in the last few years--usually ladders into the various Anasazi ruins, so I picked a "ladder pic" to enter!

And, speaking of ladders! I can't enter these in the contest 'cause they're on the Ute Mountain Tribal Park (Cortez) and not a "National" Park/area, but this is the ladder up to Eagle Nest Ruin on the Tribal Park--one of my favorite places!

AND---speaking of LADDERS! This is the "ladder" you use to get up into the Horse Collar Ruins at Natural Bridges National Monument (west of Blanding, Utah). I've been up--and down--it three times now!

Any opinions on the second and third rainbow pics?

Thanks, all, for "liking" my pics! I'm in Picture Heaven right now! In getting "caught up" from my hard drive crash the end of 2010, I've downloaded approximately 10,000 pictures into the computer in the last month or so, and am really having fun "seeing" them! I had never looked at most of them, even on the little camera screen, and was totally surprised with some of them--like the hawk pics--that I didn't even remember having taken! I'll see if I'm able to edit and caption 10,000 pics over winter! And I will have garden pics to post again now when something comes up!!!

Skybird

P.S. AFTER posting the rainbow pics here I realized the horizon is "crooked" in all three of them! I'm not gonna re-post them, but I've straightened it out in all of them, so if that's a factor in anybody's opinion, the horizon will be "fixed" in whichever two I decide to enter! Whoever woulda thunk you could "fix the horizon!!!"

I won't hold that tilted horizon in the 2nd rainbow photo against you, Skibird. And, I'll agree with your NY friend - it looks the best. The rock formations in the canyon are more interesting.

That tree leaning against the rocks is a ladder?! Whoa!

The pictures you are sending in are really lovely.

Steve
whirlybirds always on the mind