On The Road – Albatrossity – Rough-legged Hawks

That has started to change. Ten years ago some raptor researchers started the Rough-legged Hawk Project, dedicated to capturing Rough-legged Hawks and outfitting them with transmitters which allow them to be tracked (via satellite or cell phone towers) all year long. To date they have put transmitters on 180 individual hawks in 18 states, 2 Canadian provinces, and one territory. One of those was this guy, a young male captured in Jan 2021 in Lyman County SD. Here are the tracking data for him since he was banded (this map, and all the maps below, are courtesy of Neil Paprocki and the Rough-legged Hawk Project). The linear tracks are his travels in previous years, and the circular points are the fall and winter of 2023. Note that he started from the eastern shore of Hudson Bay this fall, and that he had been spending a lot of time in the Dakotas and Nebraska. Click here for larger image.

I got a message from Neil, one of the leaders of the Rough-legged Hawk project, that this bird had moved from North Dakota to Kansas when the polar vortex herniated and blasted the Great Plains with Arctic air, snow, and wind. You can see that movement in the previous map, but this map shows that the bird was now about 50 mi northwest of my location (Manhattan KS). Neil wanted to know if I could perhaps try to get some pictures of the bird, because he would have molted into adult plumage since he was captured as a youth, and they wanted to see what he looked like now. He was as far south as he had ever been, and closer to me, an obsessed photographer that Neil was in contact with. Naturally, I said yes! Click here for larger image.

Here is a map showing his location history in the days just prior to Friday, Jan 25. It appeared that he was spending a lot of time around the intersection of two gravel roads (National Rd and 13^th St), and it might be possible to sight him and photograph him in that area. But there was a problem with that scheme. As I wrote to Neil: “I suspect that those gravel roads are seriously challenging right now; that area got snow and rain that added up to 3+ inches of precipitation recently, and we have just now (yesterday) started to thaw. Click here for larger image.

Nevertheless, I recruited Elizabeth and we headed out. I had a free morning, and Elizabeth needed a short road trip, because she was recovering from a mild concussion (slipping and falling on ice…) and needed to avoid reading, thinking, or looking at a screen (all of which are daunting assignments for an academic). So I thought we would head up there and evaluate the situation on the ground, in order to get a more informed idea about when those roads might be compatible with travel in my vehicle. Long story short – they got significantly more snow in that immediate area than we did here in Manhattan. It was beautiful, but treacherous. National Road north from 10th (K148) was not even accessible; the snowplowing had left a moraine blocking access from that direction. Click here for larger image.

And 13th west from K15 was sloppy and muddy for the initial stretch; east of K15 it had not even been plowed yet. I did not need three+ miles of that, or the prospect of digging out (accompanied by a person recovering from a concussion!). So we turned around and came back, hoping that the bird would stay long enough to allow the roads to become less daunting. Click here for larger image.

Unfortunately, the bird headed north on the afternoon of Sunday Jan 27. The most recent update from Neil indicates that he stopped in Nebraska, about 20 miles north of his previous location in Kansas. There is still some snow cover there, so I probably am not gonna chase him again. Click here for larger image.

Yes, so far there are no bird pictures in this post! We can remedy that with a few, showing off the many plumages of this beautiful raptor. First up is a shot of a young light-morph bird in the fall of the year that it had hatched. The best hallmark of this plumage is a pale iris, which becomes dark brown as the bird ages into adulthood. This photo also shows an interesting behavior; these birds often perch at the tippy-top of trees, on tiny skinny branches. Click here for larger image.

Rough-legged Hawks have dark and light morphs, but, unlike Red-tailed Hawks, the sexes had different adult plumages. This is a light-morph adult female, with a darker eye and a deep dark bellyband. The tail has a dark trailing edge, and there is a dark “carpal patch” at the bend of the wing. Click here for larger image.

This is a light-morph male, showing off the white patch at the base of the tail, and multiple bands in the tail. Click here for larger image.

Finally, here is a dark-morph male. Since the underwing coverts are dark, it’s harder to see that carpal patch, but you can see one of the other characteristics of this species, the feathering (the “rough leggings”) that extends all the way down to the base of the toes, which is not seen in Red-tailed Hawks. Click here for larger image.

(Thanks to Neil and Elizabeth for reading drafts of this post and making helpful suggestions!)