Barb and I were pleased to see 9 Rough-legged Hawks, all light morph, this afternoon in Elbert and Lincoln counties.
- 3 south of Matheson on Elbert CR 149 to CR 66, spaced a couple of miles apart. - 2 more, a male and a female, at the top of a tree east of that junction, 149 & 66. (Seemed unusual for a solitary hawk species in non-breeding season.) - 4 more along I-70 between Limon and Bovina, spaced a couple of miles apart. We also saw a Prairie Falcon, and two prairie Merlins, all spaced far apart. It seems that during some winters Rough-legged Hawks are fairly common in Colorado, other winters not so much. They eat lemmings in the Arctic, so maybe their numbers fluctuate with the lemming population, like Snowy Owls. I wonder if anyone keeps an annual Colorado census of this sort? I wasn’t able to glean such data from eBird. Horned larks were not abundant for us today, and no Lapland Longspurs despite many patches of freshly plowed earth. More on Rough-legged Hawks from the internet, if you’re interested: As Swainson’s Hawks retreat to South America, Rough-legged Hawks descend from the Arctic tundra to take their place. *Buteo lagopus. “*Lagopus” is Greek for “feet like a hare’s”*. *Yep, they’re sort of furry, covered with feathers, like ptarmigan, another Arctic bird. John James Audubon called it Rough-legged Falcon. Wikipedia calls it Rough-legged Buzzard. They breed in the Arctic and Subarctic regions of North America and Eurasia, the only buteo that has a complete circumpolar distribution. Along with the kestrels, kites and osprey, this is one of the few birds of prey to hover regularly--we saw that activity today. There are three subspecies. They have small talons and prey on small rodents, like lemmings and voles, but are also known to take young snow buntings *and Lapland longspurs*. (Yes, my excuse!) They can live 19 years in the wild. Good winter birding! Tom Wilberding Littleton, Colorado <https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-hyNVIMZ3nek/Wh-Mqw4OtUI/AAAAAAAAAmg/F5zTtpCD6zAD_ECSHrbqWyflk7B6SJLaQCLcBGAs/s1600/_V6A2208.jpg> <https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-JEX1o50JRGE/Wh-MyI09wFI/AAAAAAAAAmk/KfK8skDd_XQpfzEkJCg-R83Je5urLStnACLcBGAs/s1600/_V6A2199.jpg> <https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-KL7ght-LZyk/Wh-NCyj2XlI/AAAAAAAAAmo/O0haNY0DBDEqysBqcaEAi11g5wtWIbW9QCLcBGAs/s1600/_V6A2220.jpg> -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Colorado Birds" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/cobirds/e4ceea59-a572-4613-8df3-8a7671e5fb7b%40googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
