Ferruginous Hawks

A few weeks ago I was heading down a dirt road and when I came over the hill there was a recently fledged brood of 5 young Ferruginous Hawk clustered in the middle of the road with both parents circling above. They all flushed before I could stop and wound up sitting on a nearby hill. They seemed to not be used to being apart and wound up clustered there as well. As I watched they flushed, one by one, to the nearby nest.





The adults kept circling me, letting me know they were still watching.



Later in the day another flew by.



The Ferruginous Hawk is one of our most common breeding hawks, along with the Swainson's Hawk and the Northern Harrier. This one was nesting at the end of a raptor survey route I ran with Dad early in June.



Shortly after seeing the Ferruginous Hawks that day I found this larger cousin, an immature Golden Eagle, circling in an updraft with a Northern Harrier.