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Defenders Magazine
Species Spotlight: Ferruginous Hawk
Look skyward on the open prairie and that large dark bird hovering overhead—with an impressive four-foot wingspan—just might be a ferruginous hawk. Named for its rusty-colored back and shoulders, the bird—the largest hawk in North America—has an unusual trait it shares with the golden eagle: Its legs are booted in feathers to the tips of its toes.
Breeding in the United States from eastern Washington to eastern South Dakota and south to Arizona and the Texas panhandle, the ferruginous hawk prefers to line its bulky nest with bison dung. But today, with that resource mostly unavailable, the hawks make do with cow pies instead. Their sagebrush stick homes are positioned near open grasslands or shrublands in isolated trees or other elevated sites such as rock outcrops, low cliffs, large shrubs and even haystacks. Often the raptors return to the same nests, adding additional sticks each year. A well-used nest can increase in height from 2 feet to 15 feet.
The helpless birds hatched inside grow up on jackrabbits and other small mammals. If they survive their first two years they could reach the ripe old age of 10 or 15. But most fledglings don’t live much beyond their first migration, when they become independent of their parents and must forge on their own amid the many hazards that surround them: habitat loss from agricultural and energy development, wildfires, poisoning of their prey—especially ground squirrels and prairie dogs, illegal shooting and electrocutions from collisions with power lines.
But with the protection of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and laws in states where it is considered an at-risk species, this booted bird just might stomp—or at least soar and swoop—into the future.
