This month’s quiz bird has the hooked beak and talons typical of raptorial birds and the lack of a facial disk and the various plumage features visible rule out the owls (order Strigiformes) and New World vultures (order Cathartiformes), so we are left with a member of either the Accipitriformes (the bird order housing the Old World vultures, kites, hawks, harriers, eagles) or the Falconiformes ( the order housing the caracaras and various other falcons).

While Red-tailed Hawk is exceedingly variable in plumage, given this good a look, our bird’s lack of a patagial bar rules out that beast. The reddish coloration below, particularly the belly barring, is suggestive of a couple species in each of the genera (plural of genus) Accipiter and Buteo and a couple species of kites, though the bird’s dark eye rules out at least one of those kite species. Because of what little of the underside of the wing that we can see, we can rule out the two red-barred accipiters (Sharp-shinned and Cooper’s hawks) and the other kite species. That is because the very wide blackish trailing edge to the wing is not a feature of any accipiter or of Double-toothed Kite.