Birds of the Desert: Harris's Hawk

A very rare visitor to the skies of Oklahoma, the Harris's Hawk is a raptor of saguaro-mesquite, paloverde, organ pipe cactus, or mesquite woodlands.  They are normally in the extreme southwest part of the country as well as southern Texas.  They are social hawks with a cooperative effort in hunting and know the meaning of family as a unit.  A couple of them will flush their prey and the third will capture it.  It may lead to sibling rivalry, but it is a healthy way to do it.

Their body structure is somewhat confusing, running about midway between a buteo and an accipiter with short wings, long tail, lanky build, and rounded, broad wings.  Its  genus name certainly suggests these attributes, parabuteo.  The wings are all dark with rufous shoulders and white upper tail coverts and tail tip.  Audubon even named this bird after his friend and ornithological companion, Edward Harris.

                                                               Harris's Hawk
                                                           Eastland, TX 2018

The dusky hawk breeds in the southwest US through Mexico and Central America, south to Argentina, Brazil, and Chile.  They will reside in semi-desert, sparse woodlands, mangrove swamps, and marshes with sparse trees in some of their assorted ranges.  They do not migrate and are resident birds in their own zones.  Even though their populations are declining, they have relocated to developed areas.



Harris's Hawk (background) with
   Peregrine Falcon (foreground)
Digital Art by Liana Winters Smith


Highly intelligent and easy to train, this is a popular falconry bird, which lends to the fact that it is seen in Europe and Asia.  Its size falls between a Red-tailed Hawk and a Peregrine Falcon with the female thirty percent larger than the male, which is a form of sexual dimorphism.

Their agility and hunting practices allow them to take rabbits, lizards and large insects. The bay- winged hawk will nest in shrubby growth, cacti, and small trees.  Young have been known to stay with their parents for up to three years, lending to cooperative breeding.   The female could breed up to three times each year.

The dusky hawk will often stand upon another if perching spots are lacking.

Oklahoma Breeding Bird Species Profile: Black-billed Magpie

A large bird of the American West in the corvid family, the Black-billed Magpie is easily identified by long black tail with black, white and blue-green iridescent plumage.  It also boasts white primaries and scapulars, readily observed in flight.  The mechanical sounds that the magpie makes are reminiscent of R2D2 of Star Wars fame.  With such a recipe, this is a bird sure to cause the curious to become even more intrigued.

This unusual bird flashes white wing patches while in flight, somewhat similar to the Northern Mockingbird. The long rudderlike tail, which makes up half its body length, appears to belong to the Great-tailed Grackle at first glance.  So what IS it?

The American magpie is common in parklands, riparian thickets, and prairies, as long as there are scattered trees at its disposal.  It also perches on fenceposts as well as along the roadside.  A seed- as well as animal eater, it forages on the ground for insects, rodents, and worms, usually in small groups of its kind.




                              Black-billed Magpie
        Pen, ink, graphite pencil, marker, colored pencil
                        Art by Liana Winters Smith

A Cimarron County resident in the 1920s and early '30s, it has recently been seen in Cimarron County along the river for which the county is named off Highway 325. Though a very rare bird now, it still remains in the Panhandle as a species.  It was last seen in numbers of a dozen in 2012.

The domed nest, though historical, sits near the tops of trees and is twig construction.

These omnivores have habits of the Cattle Egret, which also stays around moose or cattle herds and removes ticks and other pests from their backs by standing upon them. As a gregarious species, it is also somewhat tolerant of humans, often in their vicinity and around their structures, conveyances, or bird feeders to supplement their diets.

They have also followed wolves, cleaning up after their kills, as any opportunistic animal would.  Like crows, they cache food on the ground.  The food is covered up with grass or leaves, and usually consumed within a few days, moved elsewhere for security reasons, or simply abandoned.  No doubt that the aroma will eventually lead other animals to its location if unused.

The magpie ants as well as suns itself under appropriate conditions.  They also roost in the winter, like the American Crow, but don't huddle.  They will also regurgitate pellets, which can be found under the trees on the ground.

They have decreased in the plains due to habitat loss since the mid-1960s and are susceptible to topicals applied to the backs of cattle as a pest deterrent.

Magpies tend to use altitudinal migration over any other type of seasonal movement.
.

Oklahoma Migratory Species Profile: Peregrine Falcon

Stooping at a conservative 186 mph, what can possibly escape the clutches of the Peregrine Falcon?

Uncommon in open locales, especially near water, this missile of a bird of prey nests on edges of cliffs as well as within cities upon buildings or bridges.  A solitary speed demon such as this to be reckoned with, the peregrine hunts prey such as small or medium sized birds.  As seen in the video, it also swiftly dispatches what it considers threats to its young, both real and imagined.

DDT and other equally destructive pesticides nearly eradicated the duck hawk in the mid-twentieth century in the US, but the species managed to rebound with the help of captive breeding.

Falconry has been an avid sport for an easy millennia, and the peregrine was always one of the most coveted of prizes.  The only continent devoid of this remarkable species in Antarctica.  It also cares nothing for tropical forests or very high mountains, as its talents are squelched in those ecosystems.
It reaches sexual maturity in one year and healthy populations will breed between the ages of two and three.  A pair mates for life and they return to the same nesting spot each year.  The species is dimorphic, and its markings are unmistakable.

Courtship between a pair is the most acrobatic natural system that one will ever encounter, including dives, spirals, passing food between the two individuals, and the necessity of unparalleled aerial maneuvers to receive the morsel.

Its lineage includes the deadly agility of the Prairie Falcon, where it likely originated in Africa through western Eurasia.  Mitochondrial DNA structures tend to surprise the scientific world, for much of its genetics have allowed study and breeding to creat even stronger birds than it originally was made for.




                    Peregrine Falcon
                 pen and ink drawing
               by Liana Winters Smith
       

The Perilanner combines hardiness with hunting and similar parenting, and then came the Gyrfalcon to produce large and even more strikingly marked birds.  There is even the Perlin, which is a mix with the Merlin.

Peregrines are just as lethal as their own predators, which include the Golden and Bald Eagles.  If these birds come too close to the eyases in the nest, they will usually win the encounter, but they usually prefer to keep their distance unless it is warranted.

                                                              Peregrine Falcon
                                                         Great Salt Plains, 2017

Oklahoma Breeding Bird Species Profile: Cooper's Hawk

Peak migration for hawks is usually in late September, so now is the time to brush up on your ID skills.  You will be comparing species that could be side by side, and you could see a dozen or two every minute.  The largest conflict is between Sharp-shinned and Cooper's Hawks, and the jury could still be out on those sightings.

The adult Cooper's hawk will be wearing a dark cap and will have a paler nape.  It also has white undertail coverts conspicuously displayed in flight, and since the Northern Goshawk is not seen in Oklahoma with any regularity, you will have a Cooper's.  It is also best to focus on the rounded tail shape and long length.  Their flight is a flap, flap, glide, not constant flapping.  Also observe head size and the leading edge of the wing.  An adult male Coop will also have gray cheeks.  They will also be more apt to be found on a fencepost than a Sharpie.

                                                              Adult Cooper's Hawk
                                                                Boomer Lake Park

As an accipiter, they have relatively short rounded wings and long tails.  They are bird and small mammal eaters, and they could be found in your front yard or the deep woods.  They can pour on the speed or they can glide into your feeders with very little warning.  If you hear a bang on your front storm door and find a dead bird, the culprit is likely the Cooper's Hawk.  Wingbeats are also choppy and stiff.

The two age classes are adult and juvenile, or first year.  The first year is buff-white with thin, chocolate streaks and could be found only on the breast or upper belly.

                                                              Juvenile Cooper's Hawk
                                                                 Flying Off with Gull
                                                                   Boomer Lake Park

We all know that the hen hawk is larger than the Sharpie, but you must not rely on size, because they are rarely side by side.  Know the other characteristics that have been outlined with practice, and you'll not go wrong.

A breeder of the mature forest, nests are in large deciduous trees at the crotch or next to a trunk in a coniferous tree.   The chicken hawk prefers deciduous trees in many cases.

                                                                                       

                          Cooper's Hawk

                       Liana Winters Smith

 Single brooders from April through July in Oklahoma, the male selects the nest site, and builds most of the structure.  He remains attentive to her needs from courtship through the nestling process.    Young birds fledge after a little more than a month, and they remain dependent for another month.