This week’s Bird of the Week, compliments of the Weminuche Audubon Society and Audubon Rockies, is the sharp-shinned hawk.
This smallest member of the accipiter household of birds is constructed for flight that’s quick and acrobatic. Short wings and a protracted tail that features as a rudder enable accipiters to make tight turns and sharp dives whereas flying by way of the small openings of their forested habitats. In distinction, hawks within the buteo household, just like the acquainted red-tailed, with brief tails and lengthy, extensive wings, are designed for hovering.
Depending on location, sharp-shinned hawks are both resident or long-distance migrants. Those that breed in Canada and the northern United States could migrate so far as Central America for the winter. We are inside their year-round vary. Often out of sight, they nest and lift their young in densely forested areas with a closed cover. In winter they could transfer to forest edges for higher searching.
Ninety p.c of a sharpie’s weight loss plan is songbirds, normally robin-sized or smaller. Stealth and shock adopted by quick pursuit enter into its searching technique. They are geared up with lengthy toes and talons to impale and maintain onto struggling prey. Sharp imaginative and prescient and the power to course of visible info a lot sooner than we are able to permits them to keep away from obstacles and observe prey whereas in excessive velocity chase.
Adult sharp-shinned hawks are slate blue-gray above and have slender, red-orange barring throughout their breasts. Their lengthy tails have broad, darkish bands and are sq. tipped. The yellow eye colour of brown immature birds adjustments to crimson in adults. Even skilled chicken watchers have problem distinguishing the sharp-shinned from the Cooper’s hawk, which seems almost similar. The Cooper’s appears to be like extra square-headed, has a darkish cap and its tail seems extra rounded, however these variations are sometimes exhausting to see.
If chicken feeders appeal to songbirds to your yard, don’t be shocked to have a sharpie present up in search of a meal. If one turns into a daily customer, you could have to take your feeders down for a few weeks to encourage it to maneuver on.
For info on occasions, go to www.weminucheaudubon.org and www.fb.com/weminucheaudubon/.
