Broad-winged Hawks
About the middle of last week, I began noticing a call I couldn’t quite place from a deeply-wooded area along one of the roads where I walk. High and strong, it sounded familiar, but I couldn’t quite figure it out, a whistled sort of EEE-uurr. On Saturday morning when I was passing this spot I heard the call again and this time it seemed to be closer, so I stopped and scanned the trees – and saw the unmistakable shape of a good-size hawk flying low through the trees from one spot to another, with a pale breast and banded tail. Of course! A Broad-winged Hawk.
This is the first time I’ve found a Broad-winged Hawk in our woods, and after checking on them for several days now, I think it’s possible and even likely that a pair nested here this summer, in this area where there are lots of hardwood trees on a hill that slopes down to a creek. Since I’ve been gone for long periods of time – and because Broad-winged Hawks are known for being secretive during nesting season – I could easily have missed them until now. A better birder would have known the call immediately, but all I can say is that I wasn’t expecting it and haven’t heard it for a long time – not very good excuses. Yet another lesson in being more alert, instead of hearing and seeing only what I expect.
Although they are widespread throughout eastern North America, Broad-winged Hawks are relatively uncommon during nesting season here, so it’s especially interesting to find them.
A Broad-winged Hawk is similar in shape and appearance to the Red-shouldered Hawks that we’re used to seeing around our neighborhood, but it’s somewhat smaller and more compact, with dramatic wide dark and white bands in the tail of a mature hawk. Both are woodland raptors, nesting and hunting in forests.
While Red-shouldered Hawks are year-round residents here, Broad-winged Hawks are migratory, and are especially well known for their spectacular migration flights, when thousands of birds may gather to make the trip to winter grounds in Central and South America.
Since Saturday, the hawks have been calling every morning when I walk past this same area, and I’ve seen them briefly several times, both perched and making short flights. There are at least two, and I think three. They call repeatedly to each other, back and forth – a high, strong, insistent whistle that doesn’t sound like a hawk, but more like a smaller bird. Each one I’ve seen has been a juvenile, with a pale breast streaked with dark brown, chocolate brown back, lightly speckled with white, and a tail with narrow bands of light and dark.