Northern Harrier

Hi Namitha! Thanks for your detailed ideas! Those points make a lot of sense, but perhaps it could be another part of the bird?

beallburton, can you submit photos to the feather ID website?

Thank you both!

Hi J, It can't be a turkey feather [wild turkey is a possibility if they are around in that region], but I don't think it is a Northern Harrier's either. I saw many similar feathers including this link provided by Liam in Google image search on 'hawk feathers'. But none of it looked like this one. Even in this link http://www.lab.fws.gov/featheratlas/feat...,
none of the feathers have the complete black banding like this spotting. And also the white bands in this spotting is clearly pure white but most hawk feathers I saw had an off white/light grey shading towards the tip. This is just an observation, I might be wrong.

Liam helped me a lot and was thinking it could be Circus cyaneus, Northern Harrier. http://www.lab.fws.gov/featheratlas/feat...

Thanks Namitha! That looks right to me! You can go ahead and suggest an ID for the feather if you would like! Just one thing: I found this at the top of a hike, and the incline to the hill was fairly arduous. Do you think a turkey would bother to go this high?

Hi J, Are you sure that this is not a turkey or chicken feather.
The wild turkey feather in this site looks similar. http://birdingwestcampus.blogspot.in/201....
Some hawk feathers also look very similar.
Its really tough to identify feathers, especially when the barb joints in the feathers are broken. http://www.nativeweb.org/pages/legal/bla..., http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawk

Thanks for the link, beallburton!

I don't know much about feather ID, but here's a cool web-site I've had success with in the past. http://www.lab.fws.gov/fa/idfeather.php