Broad-winged Hawk

The Broad-winged Hawk is a small, stocky buteo of eastern and northern forests, quiet and inconspicuous for most of the year but spectacularly visible during its fall migration. Adults show reddish-brown barring across the breast, a strongly banded black-and-white tail with wide bands, and pointed wingtips compared to other buteos.

Broad-winged Hawks are best known for forming massive migratory flocks called "kettles," in which hundreds to thousands of birds circle together on rising thermals, a spectacle that draws birdwatchers to hawk-watch sites each September.

Key field marks

• Small, compact buteo with relatively pointed wingtips
• Tail with broad, alternating black and white bands (fewer, wider bands than Red-shouldered Hawk)
• Reddish-brown barred breast in adults
• Pale underwings with a dark border along the trailing edge, visible in flight

Similar species

Red-shouldered Hawk is larger with more numerous, narrower white tail bands, rufous shoulder patches, and a translucent wing crescent rather than a solid dark wing border. Red-tailed Hawk is larger still with broader wings and a solid red (unbanded) adult tail.

Habitat

Breeds in continuous, mature deciduous and mixed forest, often selecting sites near forest openings or water. During migration, occurs in open sky virtually anywhere along major migration corridors.

Range

Breeds across the eastern United States and southeastern Canada. One of the most strongly migratory North American buteos, nearly the entire population funnels south each fall to winter in Central and South America, with famous concentrations passing over sites like Hawk Mountain, Pennsylvania, and coastal Veracruz, Mexico.

Behavior

During the breeding season, Broad-winged Hawks are quiet, retiring forest hawks, often detected mainly by voice. In migration, they become highly social, riding thermals in enormous circling flocks (kettles) to conserve energy over long-distance flights, sometimes numbering in the tens of thousands at a single site in a single day.

Voice

Gives a thin, high-pitched, whistled two-note call, often rendered as "pee-teeee," quite different in tone from the calls of larger buteos.

Feeding and nesting

Diet includes small mammals, amphibians, reptiles, and large insects, reflecting its forest-floor hunting style. Builds a modest stick nest in the forest interior, often reusing an old nest built by another species such as a crow.