Ferruginous Hawk
Ferruginous Hawk: Large hawk, white head, streaked, rust-brown shoulders, back, and feathered legs. Underparts have scattered rufous streaks. Gray-brown wings. Tail is white with rust-brown wash. Dark morph is red-brown with white flight feathers. Alternates deep flaps and glides, soars on thermals.
● Song:
"kree-a", "kaah kaah"
● Foraging & Feeding:
Ferruginous Hawk: Eats ground squirrels, jackrabbits, mice, birds, reptiles, and amphibians; hunts while soaring or from perches.
● Breeding & nesting:
Ferruginous Hawk: Two to six brown blotched, white to pale blue eggs are laid in a nest built of sticks, cow dung, bones, and grass, and built on a low cliff, butte, cut bank, shrub, or tree. Both parents incubate eggs for about 28 days.
● Similar species:
Ferruginous Hawk: Rough-legged Hawk has a banded tail and lacks rust-brown leggings. "Krider’s” Red-tailed Hawk has more rounded wings and featherless lower legs.
● Range & Habitat:
Ferruginous Hawk: Found in Canada, south through western and central U.S. to northern Texas. Preferred habitats include lowlands, plateaus, valleys, plains, rolling hills of grasslands, agricultural lands, ranches, and the edges of deserts.