Ferruginous Hawk

I finally got this picture yesterday. This bird showed up here about a month ago and has been living up by the new barn. I thought it odd as I had never seen one before and because it just stays within the same small area.

As I mentioned before, we had a wonderful visitor on Sunday, his name is Francis Villablanca and he is a Professor and Curator of Birds and Mammals at Cal Poly State University. He told us what type of bird it is and said that they are open grassland birds that winter here and breed in the Interior West.

Because I wanted to find out more about them, I googled and came up with the following:

The Ferruginous (fer-OO-jin-us) Hawk means "rusty color" and refers to the coloration of the birds wing and legging feathers. It is from the Buteo (BEW-tee-oh) family, which is from a Latin word meaning falcon or hawk. Commonly describes a group of medium to large birds of prey that have long and broad rounded wings and short tails. These birds are masters at soaring for long periods of time. Twelve species of buteos breed in North America north of the Mexico border. These are the largest of the buteos.

The form of the Ferruginous is marked by a large body, broad wings, broad (relatively short) tail. One unique characteristic of this bird is the very large mouth. When viewed, it almost looks like the bird is smiling, or like a Red-Tail with an unusually large mouth. It averages 22.5-25" long, with a 53-56" wingspan. Sexes are alike, females average just a bit larger than males.

The Ferruginous hunts small rodents, mice, voles, snakes, squirrels, rats, prairie dogs, snakes, lizards, grasshoppers, and crickets. These birds are the equivalent of cargo planes - large with lots of momentum and power, but unable to be as maneuverable or quick as smaller birds. These birds frequently hunt in pairs

The birds tend to hunt in early morning or late afternoon. Birds hunt in four fashions: short distance strikes on prey from the ground, aerial hunting from low altitudes, aerial strikes from high altitudes (300 feet), and flying after prey from a perch. Hunting from the ground appears to be the more successful of the four methods. Since these birds inhabit open country, they can stand by a burrow and wait for prey to appear.

Like many raptors, prey is swallowed whole or torn into chunks. The ferruginous hawk then regurgitates a pellet of fur, feathers, bone, and other non-digestible material.

Populations of ferruginous hawks seem to have declined in most areas over their range, except in California where they appear to have increased significantly in the past decade. In Utah, the ferruginous hawk is listed as a State Threatened Species, and is a federal Species of Concern.

Between two hawks, which flies the higher pitch,
Between two dogs, which hath the deeper mouth,
Between two blades, which bears the better temper,
Between two horses, which doth bear him best,
Between two girls, which hath the merriest eye,
I have perhaps some shallow spirit of judgment;
But in these nice sharp quillets of the law,
Good faith, I am no wiser than a daw.
- William Shakespeare,
King Henry the Sixth, Part I
(Warwick at II, iv)