Broad Winged Hawk
by Deena Stoddard
Title
Broad Winged Hawk
Artist
Deena Stoddard
Medium
Photograph - Photograph
Description
Broad-winged Hawks are small, compact raptors with chunky bodies and large heads. In flight, their broad wings come to a distinct point. The tail is short and square.
Adult Broad-winged Hawks have reddish-brown heads, barred underparts, and broad black and white bands on the tail. The pale undersides of the wings are bordered in dark brown. Juveniles are lighter brown with coarse streaking on the underparts, particularly on the sides of the breast; the tail is narrowly banded. In the West, rare dark-morph adults are completely dark sooty brown with a banded tail.
They hunt small animals from perches underneath the forest canopy. They sometimes soar above the canopy or across gaps such as roadcuts. Their call is a piercing whistle on a single pitch.
They are most easily seen during migration at hawkwatches such as Hawk Ridge, Minnesota, and Hawk Mountain, Pennsylvania. They form sometimes enormous aerial flocks, especially in southern Texas, in Mexico along the Gulf coast in Veracruz, and along the shores of the Great Lakes. If you're looking for Broad-winged Hawks during summer, go to an eastern or northern forest and listen for their piercing whistles, often given while circling above the forest canopy, when they are easier to see.
This beautiful specimen was captured in rural southwest Missouri.
All images © 2011-2020 Deena Stoddard ~ All Rights Reserved
Uploaded
December 11th, 2014
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