A Hawk is a Hawk is a Hawk...or Is It?

Location. Where you are matters! If you’re in New Jersey marshlands in November and a long, brown bird with a white patch on its rump is hovering close to the ground, chances are you’re looking at a female Northern Harrier. If you’re in Lettuce Lake outside Tampa in February, and you see a large brown bird with white belly hanging out eyeing the lake, it’s an osprey.

Timing. Familiarize yourself with migration times in your area. Chances are the speck you see high in the sky in June in New Jersey is a red-tailed hawk, not a rough-legged hawk. This is because rough-legged hawks winter in New Jersey; their summer breeding grounds are in the Arctic Circle.

General appearance and size. Distance, position, and lighting play major roles in helping you determine what you’re seeing. Familiarize yourself with silhouettes, shapes and sizes. Slim merlins are usually no more than a foot in length; chunky red-taileds can be close to two feet. As birds approach from the distance, watch the tilt of their wings: falcons keep their wings straight; accipiters wings’ tend to dip slightly. Buteo wingtips tilt upward.

Calls. My aural skills are pathetic, but I do know the difference between an osprey’s cry and that of the red-tailed. While challenging, getting to know raptor calls enhances your expertise.

Field guide. Familiarize yourself with the illustrations or photos in your favorite field guide. In time you’ll begin to differentiate the markings of not just buteos, accipiters and falcons but also males, females, and immatures. The red-tailed hawk shown in the photo below is a female. (TAKE THIS HINT: The male Northern Harrier is smaller than the female harrier. He is also gray, as opposed to brown. You could impress your less-experienced birder-friends with this information some day).

Finally, get experience. One of the best ways to immerse yourself in hawk identification is to find a hawk watch and visit several times. Hawk watches are conducted every spring and fall along major flyways in the United States. Visiting a local bird rehabilitation center will also help you see birds up close and personal. The Raptor Trust in Millington, New Jersey, is nationally renowned for its bird rescue efforts, education programs, and collection of permanently injured birds of prey.

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