That’s a young Swainson’s Hawk – possibly a dark morph. The heavy, tear-drop shaped spots on a tawny background are typical of juveniles of darker Swainson’s. But the real clincher is the small, delicate feet – RTHA has much larger feet.

Nice photo.

Mark

The white face is what I was looking at… but Chuck, keep talking to me.  I’m not convinced… only amazed how close I could get.  I was comparing with this and others in the MacCaulay library.  In flight there was no red in the tail, but I kept staring at the beak… also all around it just seemed a tad bit smaller than a red tail.  

With the white chest, I believe this is a young Red-tail.

 Here’s,

Chuck Trost

Meant to chime in earlier – had a whining Swainson in a neighboring field last weekend, with what looked to be two adults perched up in the nearby poplars.  Then today, upon pulling into our driveway, was a juvenile perched by our newly mown meadow.  Not shy at all, he let me get fairly close.  He pounced on something that must have escaped, then took off for the trees.  What a dapper gent.