This painting was very difficult for me to paint–that surprised me, I thought it would be one of the easiest paintings I ever did. I wasn’t able to take any photos myself that showed good detail and I couldn’t find many taken by others that were easy to use as ref, and many that I could find showed Birds like the ones I grew up with in Pennsylvania that are whiter and “cleaner-looking” than our Northwest Birds. They are all beautiful.  For several seasons once in New Mexico we saw a Red-tail that was a color morph with a black body, white trim in the rear of its body and a bright red tail.  I would love to have had a detail shot of that bird in flight, it was stunning, but it wouldn’t have worked for a painting as this combo is very rare.