This interesting hawk is a dark-morph Western Red-tail, the 'calarus' subspecies. The 1st thing that caught our eye was the overall darkness of the back. Note how dark the head is, lacking the paler tone shown by our Eastern, or borealis, birds. Note also, that the wingtips extend down to almost the tip of the tail, they fall well short on Eastern birds. Eastern birds can show long wings when they are drooped, but this isn't the case here. Western's often have multi-banded tails, but the unbanded tail is a common variation. The throat is dark, with a narrow white strip down the side.