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Re: BALD EAGLE! yikes!



On Fri, Sep 4th, 2009 at 3:25 AM, Ian Paulsen <birdbooker@zipcon.net> wrote:

> HI Mark et al.:
>  Here's the PDF:
> 
> http://www.aba.org/birding/v40n4p28.pdf
> 
> It was a sub-adult bird that looked like a really big bald eagle.

It's surprising how common avian hybrids actually are (at least compared to 
mammals). I'd certainly 
heard about goshawk 'species' here in Australia forming mixed breeding pairs 
(apparently the offspring 
are fully fertile). Grey and Brown Goshawks have very different coloured 
plumage (as their names 
suggest), but apparently some of them manage to get past the colour differences 
and find love.

http://www.birdforum.net/opus/images/6/63/Grey_Goshawk.jpg
http://www.raptor.org.au/browngoshawk.jpg

A quick Google Books search revealed the following pulbication:

Eugene M. McCarthy 1938 "Handbook of avian hybrids of the world".

The URL is too long to include here, but you can simply plug the title into the 
Google Books search. It 
looks like most of the book is there online.

-- 
_____________________________________________________________

Dann Pigdon
GIS / Archaeologist                Australian Dinosaurs
Melbourne, Australia               http://home.alphalink.com.au/~dannj
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