Leucistic Red-tailed Hawk in Richmond Hill?

by Adriana Pisano Beaumont
(Richmond Hill, Ontario, Canada )

On Easter Monday, we spotted, in a tall deciduous tree in the ravine behind our house, a very light, buffy, pale looking Hawk sitting on the bare branches.

He actually looked somewhat like a Snowy Owl.

With binoculars, we could clearly see a pale 'reddish-pink' tone to the body feathers, a distinct white tip at the unbanded tail and a VERY pale creamy breast with some light tan spots.

He (or she) was HUGE (~22") by comparison to the Red Tailed Hawks we commonly see around here (we're on the Oak Ridges moraine in Richmond Hill).

We didn't think it was a raptor we had seen before, so we poked around the internet and it seemed to most closely resemble a Ferruginous hawk.

The problem is that we kept reading that they are not indigenous to our area and are quite scarce.

Then I came across a forum posting that talked about leucistic Red-Tailed Hawk sightings?

He was just happily hanging out in that tree for the better part of 15 minutes - not very interested in the crowd of Squirrels or birds at our feeders.

I figured he had already eaten or, more concerning, was the possibility that he belonged to a local falconer and had escaped into the wild (although he had no jesses and he looked very healthy).

It finally dawned on me to get a photo but by the time I got my camera out of the bag and rushed back downstairs, he was gone.

Any thoughts on the sighting would be appreciated...

A really beautiful specimen to behold, regardless of what he was.