{"id":3234,"date":"2014-09-04T20:05:35","date_gmt":"2014-09-05T00:05:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/?p=3234"},"modified":"2014-09-04T20:06:02","modified_gmt":"2014-09-05T00:06:02","slug":"broad-winged-hawk-9314","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/?p=3234","title":{"rendered":"Broad-winged Hawk – 9\/3\/14"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Broad-winged<\/a>
Broad-winged Hawk in Pine Island NY, 9\/3\/14.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I had an interesting and fun experience in Pine Island yesterday afternoon watching a young Broad-winged Hawk hunt for insects. The bird was either unaware of my presence (I was using my car as a blind), or just didn’t care. Very close by, the hawk successfully hunted for about a half dozen insects, each of which the bird dismantled and patiently ate. While I was watch ing the bird\u00a0in the field, I was pretty sure it was a Broad-winged Hawk. But, then when I got home and I thought about doing a post with the photos, I started to ask myself \u00a0– \u201cwhy is this a Broad-winged and not a Red-shouldered Hawk?” Thinking about it, probably the main reason I was thinking BWHA was the size of the bird. To me, the bird appeared small in size – likely the smallest buteo that I have ever seen perched. The hawk’s behavior was another reason; a BWHA hunting insects in a field made sense to me, though I’m not sure why, perhaps Red-shouldered Hawks are just as likely to do this? I also think that at some level I was thinking about the fact that BWHAs are just starting to migrate through our area. For me to post about this bird, I needed to have a more positive identification, so I did a google search and found a very useful comparison of juvenile Broad-winged and Red-shouldered Hawks<\/a>, provided by the\u00a0International Wildlife Rehabilitation Council. The following photos illustrate some of the field marks exhibited by this bird that lead me to believe that the bird is indeed a Broad-winged Hawk:<\/p>\n

\"x\"<\/a>
According to the International Wildlife Rehabilitation Council Raptor ID Series, juvenile Broad-winged Hawks have a malar mark on the cheek and a pale bluish spot on the lower part of the upper mandible. I can see the bluish spot clearly, and I guess the dark area that starts at the base of the bill and goes down and away is the malar mark. Click on the link<\/a> to\u00a0see the comparison between the two hawks more clearly.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Again,<\/a>
Again, according to the IWRC Raptor ID Series, juvenile Red-shouldered Hawks have a reddish panel in the primaries, while Broad-winged Hawks do not.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Fin\"<\/a>
And, finally, and also according to the IWRC Raptor ID Series, the markings on the underside of the wing\u00a0are consistent with a juvenile Broad-winged Hawk: narrow dark bars across the secondaries and inner primaries. Check the link <\/a>to see how the underwing\u00a0compares to that of a RSHA.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I guess the bird had eaten enough and it flew (not very far!), and perched in a tree on the roadside:<\/p>\n

\"BWHA<\/a>
BWHA in Pine Island, 9\/3\/14.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A few more shots of the bird:<\/p>\n

\"BWHA<\/a>
BWHA hunting insects. I’m still not sure what the insects were. Pine Island, 9\/3\/14.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Eating<\/a>
Eating bugs can be a messy business. BWHA in Pine Island, NY 9\/3\/14.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Broad-winged<\/a>
Broad-winged Hawk in flight. Pine Island, NY 9\/3\/14.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I had an interesting and fun experience in Pine Island yesterday afternoon watching a young Broad-winged Hawk hunt for insects. The bird was either unaware of my presence (I was using my car as a blind), or just didn’t care. Very close by, the hawk successfully hunted for about a half dozen insects, each of … Continue reading “Broad-winged Hawk – 9\/3\/14”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3234","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-orangecounty","category-raptors"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5i3kT-Qa","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3234","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3234"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3234\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3246,"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3234\/revisions\/3246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}