Hooves or wings

I knew I wanted to get some pictures processed and uploaded, but was not sure which ones to start with. Several weeks ago we stopped at a man-made lake and waterfall by a new shopping center and took some pictures. A week later, I was shooting in a little park with my wife and youngest son and saw a crane (I think, not identified for sure?) and after getting some shots of him, saw a pair of ducks hanging out nearby. Then, last week, I finally got some pictures of the wild horses on my way home (they were fairly close to the highway) so I was leaning towards them since they are one of my rare treats. However, I decided to go with wings in the hopes that the horses will be closer one of these days (last year, one lone horse was about 50 ft from me).



Now for the tricky part. I am pretty certain this is a hawk, but what kind. After going through the WhatBird wizzard, the 2 I think most likely are listed below. I've deleted the parts of the description that do not contribute to this identification since I did not see him flying or hunting.

Harris's Hawk: Large hawk, dark brown head, neck, back, belly and rust-brown shoulders, underwing coverts and flanks. Tail is dark brown to almost black with white base and terminal band. Undertail coverts are white. Legs and feet are yellow.

Red-tailed Hawk: Large, highly variable hawk with brown upperparts, head and throat. The underparts are pale with brown streaks. Wings are pale below with dark bar at leading edge and dark tips. The tail is red-brown with dark terminal band. Legs and feet are yellow.

While it could possibly be a prarie falcon, I think the prarie falcon seems to have more white in the the head and back (based on the pictures in whatbird and in my book, The Complete Illustrated Encyclopedia of North American Birds). In some of the shots, his tail looks red-brown which is my current reason for calling it a Red-tailed Hawk, but I would be happy to accept the advice on more experienced birders (and you are all more experienced birders than I am). Please leave comments here (very easy and no login needed) or on Twitter. Comments here are considered "DoFollow" so they will link back to your site which helps your site in the Google rankings (many sited are noFollow and that seems to be the blogger default).

I have more pictures of this guy, but am not happy with the colors and will be working on them more before posting them, so stay tuned in my photo galleries for more of this guy in the hopefully near future.

Thanks for stopping by.