Question Liitle M

[CJ3a]

Traveling along 287 now a see some type of hawk perched in the trees. What type is it? They seem to be standing guard at every dead tree.

[Haskell_Hunter]

[LittleM]

95% of them are red-tailed hawks.  I'd say the rest of them are a mix of Cooper's and sharp-shinned hawks with even lesser amounts of red-shouldered hawks.  Most folks would ride right by a sharp-shinned hawk, as they are very small.

[BowhunterNJ]

I had a red tail land right above my head this morning. Squirrels weren't happy he showed up.

 

 

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[Bucksnbows]

Tons of red tails like Little M said.  The other day I saw a rough legged hawk come right in front of my truck while I was headed east on route 80.  My daughter asked what type it was because she had never seen one before.  You don't see very many of those.

[LittleM]

This time of year, the Wallkill Wildlife Refuge is the place to see rough-legs, northern harriers (those that didn't migrate), and short-eared owls.  This cold weather should have brought some saw-whet owls (look in real thick stands of conifers).

[CJ3a]

Thanks. Going from oakland to mahwah on 287 today I seen five standing guard.

[Bucksnbows]

I've been seeing more and more harriers lately.  I think that with some of the work being done by both the NRCS and NJ Audubon to switch European grasses like clover and timothy over to native warm season grasses in NJ, we are seeing harriers hunting over these fields.  

[Rusty]

I had a cool hunt yesterday afternoon.  A sharp-shinned hawk nailed a junco right in front of my blind and proceeded to eat it right there where it killed it.  About 10 minutes into its meal, 2 little deer came trotting through and would have run the hawk over if it didn't move.  The hawk held the junco in one foot and hopped around trying to avoid being run over by the deer.  It was funny to watch.  As soon as the deer were gone the hawk went right back to its meal.