Life and Wildlife along the Little Buffalo River

Got this quick shot of a nice sharp-shinned hawk last Sunday on Erbie Road just north of the Buffalo River. It was early morning the sun just breaking through the low clouds and fog; taken with a Canon 50D and a Canon 400mm f/5.6 Lens from the car.

They are tiny hawks that appears in a blur of motion—and often disappears in a flurry of feathers. That’s the Sharp-shinned Hawk, the smallest hawk in North America and a daring, acrobatic flier. These raptors have distinctive proportions: long legs, short wings, and very long tails, which they use for navigating their deep-woods homes at top speed in pursuit of songbirds and mice. They’re easiest to spot in fall on their southward migration, or occasionally at winter feeders.

• Size & Shape

  Sharp-shinned Hawks are small, long-tailed hawks with short, rounded wings. They have small heads that in flight do not always project beyond the “wrists” of the wings. The tail tends to be square-tipped and may show a notch at the tip. Females are considerably larger than males.

• Color Pattern

  Adults are slaty blue-gray above, with narrow, horizontal red-orange bars on the breast. Immature birds are mostly brown, with coarse vertical streaks on white underparts. Adults and young have broad dark bands across their long tails.

• Behavior

  Sharp-shinned Hawks are agile fliers that speed through dense woods to surprise their prey, typically songbirds. They do not stoop on prey from high overhead. They may also pounce from low perches. When flying across open areas they have a distinctive flap-and-glide flight style.

• Habitat

  Sharp-shinned Hawks breed in deep forests. During migration, look for them in open habitats or high in the sky, migrating along ridgelines. During the nonbreeding season they hunt small birds and mammals along forest edges and sometimes at backyard bird feeders, causing a wave of high-pitched alarm calls among the gathered songbirds.

  

  Sharp shinned Hawk