How to Identify aBroad-winged Hawk
Buteo platypterus · 13.4–17.3 in (34–44 cm)
Male vs. female
Male
Brown above, white below with heavy rusty barring across the chest, and a tail with bold equal black-and-white bands. Sexes look alike.
Female
Identical in pattern but larger.
Male photo: Original uploader was JulieFromVT (Julie Waters) at en.wikipedia / Wikimedia, CC BY-SA 3.0 · Second photo: Paul Danese / Wikimedia, CC BY-SA 4.0
Field marks
- Broad black and white tail bands of about equal width
- Stocky and short-tailed, with pointed wingtips in a glide
- Pale underwings neatly outlined in black
- Small — barely crow-sized
Similar species
What it sounds like
A thin, high, piercing two-note whistle: a short note then a long drawn-out "peee-eee".
Behaviour that gives it away
Gathers in migrating "kettles" of hundreds or thousands that spiral upward on thermals then stream south together.
Habitat & range
Interior deciduous and mixed forest across the eastern United States and Canada in summer.
When you'll see it
Depending on where in eastern, central and northern North America you are, it is a summer visitor that arrives to breed and a passage migrant, seen mainly in spring and autumn.
What it eats
Small mammals, amphibians, reptiles, large insects and nestling birds.
Did you know?
Nearly the entire population funnels through a few migration corridors, where single days can produce counts in the tens of thousands.
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