Our hawk is back

[mnhtnbb]

I first noticed her on the hill across the street from us when I was out walking Snowy around noon. A squirrel ran up the tree and chased her away. Hmmm...babies in a nest maybe?
Then my husband said he saw the same thing happen when he was up getting the mail, and the hawk flew away.

Happened to look out my study window--and there she was! Took quite a few shots. This is my favorite. She's an adult, female Northern Harrier hawk.

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[elleng]

1. HANDSOME!

[Hoppy]

2. I don't think it is a Harrier. They have a white band across the tail. Also different "face."

Maybe Coopers

[mnhtnbb]

5. I have been looking back through all my photos

because I found--on an identification website--some photos to compare Cooper's next to Norther Harrier. They are really a lot alike.
BUT, the tail shape is different.

I don't have a good shot showing whether her tail feathers are rounded with white band at the bottom--which would be Cooper's.


Cooper's on left and Northern Harrier on right






Cooper's flying on left and Northern Harrier on right (when that wide white tail band is evident, but doesn't show when perched)

[Adsos Letter]

3. You're a portrait photographer.

The subject is definitely sitting for you.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

4. What a gorgeous raptor, my dear mnhtnbb!

It's a splendid photo.

[Blue_In_AK]

6. Nice of him to pose for you.

[Agschmid]

7. He's looking hungry!

[2naSalit]

8. My two cents

1) Looks like the tail is too short for a Harrier and they are mostly found in wide open spaces and fly mostly just above the ground vegetation but it has feature that could bring one o conclude that it's a Northern Harrier, but I don't think it is. We have a lot of those out here.

2) If it's a Cooper's Hawk, which would be more likely, it would have to be a juvenile bird due to its coloring but the tail is still pretty short looking, from the picture, for it to be that either though more likely.

oops I said two cents but there are several options!

3) Ultimately I think it's a Buteo (genus) because they are puffed up looking "like football players" my ornithologist friends says of them. That being said it also has a short tail which is characteristic of Buteos. This looks more like a juvenile Broad-winged Hawk than anything in my reference books. Another thing that is hard to notice in this photo but the back of the wings have some white speckling and the brown streaks on the breast are streaks rather than horizontal bars that an adult of the species would have instead.

I think it's a Broad-winged Hawk you have there, it's probably very young and trying to figure out the game plan on its own so it's hanging out in what seems to be a safe spot for the time being, and maybe some food.

[mnhtnbb]

9. I looked at photos of Buteos when checking the Cooper's vs. Northern Harrier

and I agree with the puffed up look--like football players, that's funny!--which after checking many of the photos I took, I didn't think it had that look.

When I have time I will look at some on-line photos of broad-winged hawks. Thanks for the two cents!

I do know that we have Northern Harriers here because I've seen them--in flight--when they are easiest to identify because of that wide banded white
tail.

[2naSalit]

10. A fantastic reference book you might look into

getting some kind of... there are the desk ref. versions and the field handbook version...

David Allen Sibley, a painter and naturalist extraordinaire, has composed several books on bird identification and one on trees of North America as well. What I love about his guide books is that he hand illustrates them with far more precise detail of identifying features and marking than could be captured in a field photo, even a really good photo.

He has a web site... http://www.sibleyguides.com/

Might be helpful, I just discovered it in the writing of this comment so I'll be exploring that myself.

I like Harriers, they are cool to watch. And while they are in the process of tending to nestlings right about now, they can be seen doing a very unique activity when transporting food to their young. One of the adults will be out foraging and when something is caught, the adults communicate to each other and the one on the nest will rise up from the nest (they nest on the ground) and the one with the food will actually fling the food, in flight, to other who catches it and returns to the nest. And they fly so low most of the time they sometimes fly close to people.