Broad-winged Hawk

One of the greatest spectacles of migration is a swirling flock of Broad-winged Hawks on their way to South America. Also known as “kettles,” flocks can contain thousands of circling birds that evoke a vast cauldron being stirred with an invisible spoon. A small, stocky raptor with black-and-white bands on the tail, the Broad-winged Hawk is a bird of the forest interior and can be hard to see during the nesting season. Its call is a piercing, two-parted whistle. I saw this bird early one morning on July 14th. I was by myself, Susanne was away for the weekend. I kept hearing a sharp piercing call and then I was a this broad-winged hawk being chased out of the forest by three small birds. It perched up on this dead branch and just sat there and sat there. After 45 minutes of observing this scared predator and taking over 350 pictures of it, I decided to go my own way and leave this bird alone to conquer its fears.

Scientists used satellite transmitters to track four Broad-winged Hawks as they migrated south in the fall. The hawks migrated an average of 4,350 miles to northern South America, traveling 69 miles each day. Once on their wintering grounds the hawks did not move around much, staying on average within a 1-square-mile area. Late Pleistocene fossils of Broad-winged Hawks, up to 400,000 years old, have been unearthed in Florida, Iowa, Illinois, Virginia, and Puerto Rico. It's hard to believe they travel so far year after year, but they do. So in order to observe this raptor of the sky, it has to be during summer!