Ever see a Northern Harrier (hawk)?

[Jay H]

Was walking around my neighborhood sunday morning (I live in Morris County, NJ) and decided to walk/bushwack around the trails around the lake I live in and got to the residential spot across the lakes and was just walking around on a sunday morning stroll where this obvious bird of prey comes flying towards me and perchs itself on a branch about 100ft off the ground in a tree... I've got a clear line of sight and identifying it. Not a bird/hawk expert but doing some googling... looks to me like a Northern Harrier..

http://www.peregrinefund.org/explore_raptors/hawks/nharrier.html

http://www.coffeecreekwc.org/photos/birds/Northern_Harrier_(Male).jpg

The above picture really resembles what I saw, the chest was mostly white but with distinct brown patches as you got closer to the head. The pereginefund website also states the resemblence to owl in the facial features.. It also maps to their territory and stuff.. I've checked other references to say a cooper's hawk and goshawks too see if I can narrow it down, both look a bit different than what I saw, at least the pictures that I found online...

At first, I was thinking owl too.....

And as far as ground food, there are plenty of chipmunks, squirrels, groundhogs and field mice running around here!

Jay

 

[spider solo]

I like the Northern Harriers because they cruise low sometime just about eye level and you get an excelent view of them.
There's a lot of color variations but when it flies it has a very distinct White Patch at the base of it's tail, as seen from above.
They love shrub like farmland and things along those lines...open fields..marsh grass etc..
Nice bird, sometimes hard to see the face disk but the white is a sure bet.

 

[Papa Bear]

The Harrier (or Marsh Hawk) is fairly common over marshes and open fields. The white rump is the tip off. The pictures on that web site don't seem too helpful. BTW: the female is brown and much bigger than the male which is gray. IMHO, they would not be confused with an owl.

 

[Doc McPeak]

This spring I watched a Harrier skim the grasses and banks of a small pond/marsh. He (small and grayish) was amazing, looping around and checking out all the little openings where critters might be coming to water for their evening drink. I had never seen one before in that environment and it was quite the show.

 

[Stan]

Seems to bear a strong resemblance to what I concluded was a broad winged hawk which is somewhat smaller.

We observed our hawk with its prey, a rabbit, which it had on the side of a road in Baxter Park. Rabbit was too heavy to fly with so hawk drags it into the middle of the road and tries taking a few bites ... still too heavy to fly away with. We watched the hawk struggle with this dilemma for about 15 minutes when it finally dragged it into the brush and took off, probably praying that I would not eat its prey while he was gone.

 

[John S]

In winter, Northern Harriers are hard to miss in Hammonasset State Park in Madison, CT. Most hawks look the same to me but the Harrier’s slow, up and down but still low-to-ground, side-to-side flight is quite distinctive. Their preferred hunting areas seem to favor edge habitat – over the shallow dunes between a road and the beach, along the several lines of trees next to open areas, etc. Even over the treeless, flat marshes they seem to seek out an edge, be it a snaky natural channel or the many straight, man-made trenches dug for mosquito control. I also see them on the ground now and then.

I once had the good fortune to meet up with one while I was jogging on a gravel path next to the dunes. It flew to my left for almost a hundred yards, never more than twenty to thirty feet above or to the side. That was really cool!

As birds of prey go, however, the smaller males are kinda wimpy. I once saw one chased out of the park by a six-strong flock of parakeets!

Cool birds. Unfortunately, they are on the CT endangered species list.