Kites, Hawks, Eagles, etc. 



Broad-winged Hawk 



(Buteo liitissiiuiis) 



Length — Male 14 inches; female 16 inches. 



Male and Female — Upper parts dusky grayish brown more or less 

 bordered with rusty and buff; blackish tail with two bars 

 and the tip grayish white; three outer primaries of wings 

 notched; under parts heavily barred with white or buff 

 and dull chestnut brown, the dark in excess on the front 

 parts, the white predominant underneath; most of the feath- 

 ers black shafted, giving the effect of pencilling, particularly 

 on white throat; wing linings white with some reddish or 

 blackish spotting. 



Range — Eastern North America from New Brunswick and the 

 Saskatchewan to the Gulf of Mexico, northern South America 

 and the West Indies; nests throughout its United States 

 range. 



Season — Summer resident. May to October. 



This is the hawk of the Adirondacks among other favorite 

 resorts, and since it comes north chiefly to nest, no place is too 

 inaccessible for it to seek out, no retreat too lonely for these 

 devoted mates, that ever delight most of all in each other's 

 company. While its range is wide, it is locally common in a few 

 places and rare in others, a lover of wild, unvisited regions while 

 it has serious concerns to attend to, and only during the spring 

 and autumn migrations, therefore is it much in evidence; but no- 

 where and at no time so common about farms and the habita- 

 tions of men as the red-tailed and the red-shouldered "chicken 

 hawks" that, on the contrary, have nothing to do with mountain 

 fastnesses. 



Yet the broad-winged species is perhaps the least suspicious 

 and approachable hawk we have ; gentle and never offering to 

 strike at an intruder no matter in what distress of mind concern- 

 ing its nest; inoffensive to its smallest feathered neighbor; 

 lacking in the spirit and dash of a Cooper's hawk, and also in 

 that murderer's bloodthirstiness; and quiet except just near its 

 home. There one sometimes hears the chee-e-e-e of one mate 

 sitting on some distended dead limb, answered by the other lover 

 for hours at a time during the nesting season. Like most of its 

 tribe, both mates construct a bulky nest of twigs high in some tree 

 close to the trunk, and, if necessary, will repair an old nest from 



322 



