Fall is just around the corner and hawks will be migrating south soon...and I can't wait! One of the tips for identifying Cooper’s Hawk from Sharp-shinned Hawk is that Sharp-shinned Hawk may cock its tails up in certain conditions, whereas Cooper’s are not supposed to exhibit this behavior. Yes, it…

Check out this neat adult dark-morph Ferruginous Hawk sent to me and photographed by Tony Leukering (one of my birding mentors) last week in Montana. What I find neat about the bird is the whitish streaking on the chest that resembles what most adult dark-morph Harlan's Red-tailed Hawks look like. Having…

HawkWatch International loves nothing more than teaching people about raptors, and teaching is one of my favorite job duties as a HawkWatch Educator. This is somewhat ironic because when I was counting hawks for a living years ago, the last thing I wanted to do was talk to people...funny thing…

Interesting to me, I get asked quite often what the difference between the word “race” and “subspecies” is when talking about or discussing bird ID. Do the two words mean the same thing, or do they have two separate meanings? Basically, the words mean the same thing, but race is…

As we head into July, it will only be a month or so until the first migrant raptors start to head south, so I wanted to post some tips for new hawk watchers as a heads up and something to bookmark as you become immersed in their new hobby. Seasoned…

We have all judged the size of a bird in the field, and still do! However, size alone as a trait for ID can be very misleading…and by ‘misleading’, I mean it can lead you to a misidentification very easily! It is similar to any identification scenario in birding, a…

Since it is summer and nesting season for birds, HawkWatch is receiving calls and questions pertaining to bird nests. So, we thought we'd discuss the best practices regarding approaching bird nests, or encountering fledgling birds. HawkWatch agrees with a 'no-nest' policy, meaning we never encourage anyone to approach an active…

I wanted to post this older blog again since this discussion came up the other day... There is no doubt that the Harlan's race of the Red-tailed Hawk (bird #1) is the race that often shows mottled remiges (this defines the secondaries and primaries as one group -- "flight feathers" defines…

Did you ever notice how similar in plumage the adult Common Black-Hawk is to the adult Zone-tailed Hawk? They are both pretty much completely Black overall with a white band on the tail (or two on most Zone-taileds). There are slight plumage differences between the adult plumages, such as the…

HawkWatch International Earns Coveted 4-Star Rating from Charity Navigator Press Release June 2, 2016   SALT LAKE CITY – HawkWatch International maintained its 4-star rating from Charity Navigator, America’s largest independent charity evaluator, after the implementation of a new rating system called CN 2.1, which features enhanced financial methodology.  The 4-star…