Broad-Winged Hawk

    The broad winged hawk is the smallest of the buteos, or soaring hawks, even though their actions are typical of buteos.   They are often seen flying over eastern forests rather than open country, where they favor eating frogs and toads in the spring, and mice, small rodents, snakes, lizards, large insects and an occasional young game bird at other times.  They tend to feed by dropping down on prey from a branch high in the tree canopy.

  They are about the size of a crow and congregate in flocks numbering in the thousands during migration.  Hawk Mountain in Pennsylvania is one of the best sites to see broad-wings migrate.  They fly an average distance of close to 4,400 miles.  Most wind up in northern South America, and their numbers appear to be stable, according to the Cornell Ornithology Lab.

  Courtship displays involves whistling calls, and soaring and swooping by both sexes. Small stick nests are set up in deciduous or conifer trees in forests where red-tails and red-shouldered hawks do not nest. Broad-wings rarely use the same nest two years in a row. Two-to-four eggs are incubated by the female for about 30 days.

  The bands on the tail of the broad-wing are a good way of telling whether a hawk is mature or immature.  An immature bird has narrow dark bands and a mature bird has broad bands.   Can you tell whether our bird is mature or immature?