A spring skywatcher’s guide to our magnificent birds of prey

Return of the raptors

By Chris Earley

Eagle? I don’t see an eagle. Oops, wrong direction. There it is! A chorus of ohhhhs! bursts from the eager birdwatchers beside me. An adult bald eagle is flying past the observation tower at Beamer Memorial Conservation Area, in Grimsby, where we’ve gathered on this chilly March day. Its huge size is accented by the way it dwarfs the hawks we’ve just been viewing, but this bird would be easy to identify anyway, with its bright white head and tail. Though the eagle’s long wings soon take it out of sight, the excitement we felt stays with us.

It’s spring, and the raptors are returning to cottage country. Most of us are fascinated by these big, tough aerial predators and get a thrill when we see one perched on a hydro pole by the highway en route to the cottage or wheeling in the sky over the lake. But chances are, you may not know who’s who in the raptor crowd that populates your cottage area. One of the best ways to learn to identify hawks, harriers, falcons, osprey, eagles, and vultures is to check out the birds as they are migrating north in March and April, at a top raptor-watching area like Beamer.

Raptors have a few migratory routes into Ontario: Some travel up the American side of the Great Lakes, crossing from Michigan into Ontario near Sault Ste. Marie or entering from Minnesota at the west side of Superior; others come up through the Niagara Peninsula or around the east end of Lake Ontario.

All routes avoid traversing the lakes, and here’s why: There are no thermals over water. To conserve energy, migrating raptors soar in currents of warm air called thermals, which rise off land as the sun heats it. The travellers barely need to flap as they are lifted higher and higher, circling to stay in each thermal. At a certain height, the warm air peters out and a bird loses lift. Now it sets its wings in a glide and coasts north, slowly losing altitude until it finds another thermal, sets its wings into soar mode, and starts to climb again. But when northbound raptors hit a big body of water like Lake Erie, they lose their thermal ride because water absorbs, rather than reflects, the sun’s heat. Forced to change direction, the birds fly east to the Niagara Peninsulaand cross there. At this point, the Niagara Escarpment provides another form of lift: The cliffs deflect the wind upward and raptors can ride these air currents as they continue north. Grimsby is right on their path, making Beamer Memorial Conservation Area one of the best places to hawk-watch. Other good spots include Whitefish Point, Mich., near Sault Ste. Marie, and the tip of the BrucePeninsula; these narrow land ends bordered on either side by large lakes have the effect of funnelling the birds north. From the Bruce, raptors fly over small islands to ManitoulinIslandand beyond. From Whitefish Point, they cross to the Ontario mainland and into cottage country. Another excellent raptor-viewing location is near Duluth, Minn., on Lake Superior. 

The six turkey vultures passing over Beamer right now are using the escarpment’s deflected wind to stay aloft. Their wings have a very large surface area compared with their body weight, making the vultures more buoyant; able to teeter on very small currents, they are more efficient soarers than many other raptors. They also keep their wings uplifted a bit, giving their head-on and departing silhouettes a V shape. These “flight traits” help birders distinguish this species from other raptors, even from a great distance. Flight traits are one of the first i.d. features you should try to notice on a raptor, especially if you are only able to get a quick look. They include not just how a species holds and uses its wings, but the length and width of them, the shape of the wing tip (e.g., pointed or rounded), as well as the tail length and shape. Ask yourself how deep is each wing beat? Is there a pattern to the flapping, such as a flap-flap-flap-glide (suggesting a sharp-shinned or Cooper’s hawk)? Does the bird move a lot in the air currents (northern harrier), or does it seem heavy and solid (bald eagle)? These overall shapes and movements can be combined with “field marks,” which include wing markings, tail bands, and plumage colour, to give an overall flight pattern for a species. 

The size and shape of the turkey vulture’s wings let it conserve energy not only when it migrates, but when it searches for its dinner – carrion. Formerly a bird of southern Ontario, the turkey vulture is now venturing farther north as rural areas get more roads and more traffic, which provides more road kill for the opportunistic bird. There’s been a corresponding upswing in migration numbers at Beamer. In 1984, 616 were recorded during the spring migration; 20 years later, the count is 6,623. Bald eagles are also increasing, rebounding from a population crash during the DDT years. From 1990 to 1993, the average number recorded here was 17 per year. But the eagle that just flew by our group today ends up being one of 28 seen in March alone, with 62 recorded for the whole spring migration. (At Duluth, 3,415 bald eagles were counted, many of them en route to nesting sites in northwestern Ontario.)

I now catch sight of a sharp-shinned hawk circling directly above my head. It is the smallest of three accipiter hawks found in Ontario, and, once again, overall shape is the key to narrowing down this bird’s i.d.: Members of the accipiter group have short wings and long tails, which allow them to manoeuvre skillfully in wooded areas where they catch their favourite prey – other birds. You may have seen one at home over the winter without knowing it, as the sharp-shinned hawk and slightly bigger Cooper’s hawk are common in suburban areas of southern Ontario where they take advantage of concentrations of birds at feeders. (Cooper’s rarely ventures into more northerly cottage country.) The adults of both species are grey above and white below. They have rusty barring on their breasts, whereas the first-year birds have brownish streaks. I can distinguish the sharp-shinned hawk above me by its quick wingbeats, fairly square tail, and tiny head. The Cooper’s hawk, which passed by us only moments earlier, has a longer, rounded tail, larger head, and a more powerful flight. It may sound easy to tell these two apart but, as you’ll see when you’re frantically trying to pinpoint the features of a speedy sharp-shinned or a Cooper’s, they present one of nature’s biggest identification challenges. Luckily, the third acci-piter, the northern goshawk, is the big lug of the group – with its white eyebrow and very fine, grey barring on its white breast, it is not so hard to nail down (for more details, see “Attila the Goshawk,” December 2004, Cottage Life).

Another less-tricky group of hawks are the buteos. This bunch includes the well-known red-tailed hawk, likely the most frequently seen raptor in Ontario because of its noticeable tail, its high numbers, and its preference for open country (look for it on fence posts along the highway). But today it’s the red-shouldered hawk that catches my eye. 

With its bright rusty-barred breast and flashy black-and-white wings, the bird is coasting fairly close to the observation tower, much to the delight of the watchers. As it banks, we can even see how it got its name, showing off the reddish patches on its shoulders. It also shows the main buteo flight trait: long wide wings and a short broad tail. Both it and another member of the buteo group, the broad-winged hawk, have thick black and white tail bands, but the broad-wing migrates a bit later in the spring. As another red-shouldered hawk flies by, triggering more smiles from the crowd, I wonder if this bird is heading to the same spot I can hardly wait to get to: Fletcher Lake in Haliburton.    

It’s early May, and the first weekend at my cottage. I’m opening up – unboarding the screen windows, taking the pillows out of the mouse-proof boxes, and moving in a new fridge (not an easy feat when your cottage is at the bottom of 111 stairs). The raptors have been opening up their summer homes too, some species for almost a month. Many hawks build stick nests deep in the forest, osprey like open water areas and, further north and northwest, eagles are sitting in their treetop eyries. 

During the nesting period in May and June, cottagers may not see many signs of raptor life, as the birds are generally quiet during incubation. But on this day I luck out; walking along the cottage road, I hear a whining scream in the nearby forest. A broad-winged hawk soon flies past with what appears to be a red squirrel in its talons; it’s a food gift for its potential mate, a courting strategy used by many male raptors. It seems red squirrel is just the right present for this female broadwing because the screaming has stopped. A male bringing food is a good indication he will be a reliable provider for their future young. When she’s incubating eggs and attending their chicks, the male will be catching most of the meals. By July and August, both parents will be out hunting for food and their noisy fledglings screaming for another meal (yes, hawk parents have to deal with the hungry teenager stage, too). 

Cottagers near the wilder areas of Haliburton, as well as Georgian Bay, Muskoka, the Kawarthas, and the Rideau Lakes, can expect to see not just broad-winged hawks, but red-shouldered hawks, red-tailed hawks, osprey, sharp-shinned hawks, northern goshawks, and merlins, a robin-sized bird of the falcon family that is a brave and noisy defender of its territory. If you’re near more open farmland in these cottage regions, you might spot ground-nesting northern harriers or tiny American kestrels, which like hanging out on telephone lines. Farther north, across the top of Superior, bald eagles will be gracing lakes from Thunder Bay to Lake of the Woods. So wherever you are this spring and summer, keep your eyes to the skies and be wowed by these magnificent birds of prey.  

 

Flighty facts

  •  Ospreys, which sometimes carry fish while migrating, hold their fish prey in their talons with its head pointed forward to reduce drag while in flight.
  • On a single day in September 1999, from two spots in southern Michigan, 555,371 broad-winged hawks were counted migrating south from Ontario and northern Michigan.
  • The osprey or broad-winged hawk at your cottage may have wintered as far south as central South America.
  • Merlins are so feisty that they will dive-bomb other larger raptors during migration, even when they are far from their breeding territories. 
  • Many raptors return to the same territories every spring and use the same nests. Some species, such as the northern goshawk, can have up to five nests in the same area and may rotate their use from year to year.
  • Bald eagles often build on to their previous year’s nest, adding fresh branches to it. After several generations of birds returning and building, an eagle’s nest can grow huge – one measured more than three metres wide and almost seven metres high. Some get so heavy they actually topple their tree.  
  • Migrating broad-winged hawks can reach soaring heights of 2,000 metres or more.

Chris Earley is the interpretive biologist/education coordinator at the University of Guelph’s Arboretum. He has written various books on birds, including Hawks & Owls of the Great Lakes Region & Eastern North America (Firefly Books 2004).

Published in the April/May 2005 issue of Cottage Life magazine.

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