September, 2003 Goshute Mountains, Nevada Buteo platypterus, Broad-winged Hawk A first year raptor. This woodland species is a rare migrant in the west in the United States most spend the summer east of the Rocky Mountains. This one is the first of two Broad-winged Hawks we caught.  Tim, Leo, and I caught it at North Blind and we miss identified it as a light morph Cooper's Hawk even though they are not a polymorphic species. How could all three of us commit such a inane act one could ask? Well, it was really busy at the moment.  We caught 31 raptors that day. None of us had ever seen a Broad-winged in the hand before. It was a light-colored raptor with short wings, like a Cooper's Hawk, but with a short tail, like that of buteos. This is a "Holy Grail" raptor up in the Goshutes and our mistake put the three of us in the dog house with the rest of the crew.  I felt like crap the rest of the day.
As luck would would have I caught this second Broad-winged Hawk the morning of the next day in a mist-net using a starling lure. As I was taking it out of the mist-net I realized it was a Broad-winged Hawk but I was also in denial. Leo also identified it immediately as one too but for me it was just too good to be true. What Serendipity! The timing could not of been better. This created a lot of excitement among the crew when Leo radioed the other blinds and the observation posts.  All the other blinds were closed and the observers came down from their observation posts for a  photo  opp. This didn't get Leo, Tim and I out of the dog house with all the crew but this fortuitous capture gave me a feeling of redemption and made me almost believe in luck.  Especially considering that we only caught 13 birds that day.