Northern Harrier
Formerly known as the marsh hawk, the
northern harrier used
to be commonly seen flying low over marshes and grasslands with its
wings at a
slightly more acute angle than other hawks, even more than turkey
vultures. It also seems to tip back and
forth from one side to another as if surveying the ground one eye at a
time. It is the most sexually dimorphic
of all the hawks. The male and female
look alike in only two ways, their long lean body, wings and tail, and
their
notable facial disk. Harriers are not
placed in any of the three hawk families, perhaps because they are more
like
owls than other hawks. If their facial
disk has the same function as in owls, it would suggest that they rely
more on
hearing than other hawks.
Like all
raptors, the male is smaller than the female, though both are quite
elegant.
The male is a strikingly beautiful bird, more white than most hawks. It has a light gray head back, throat and
upper chest, a white rump and white chest and underparts, which are
striped
slightly with cinnamon. The underwings
are white and uppers are gray. Wing tips are black.
The tail is dark gray on top, whitish below
with somewhat noticeable bars. The female shares the white rump but is
mostly
brown and whitish striped all over, darker on the head and back,
lightest on
the stomach. It can also have a striking
white facial disk, and its tail is brown with dark bars. Immature birds
are
like the females.
The northern
harrier's diet is mostly small rodents. It
also takes locusts, frogs, snakes and other denizens of
the marsh and
fields. It nests on the ground, and is
therefore very vulnerable to disturbance from casual human activity. It is in serious decline, a fact less studied
than the decline of other hawks, and every effort must be made to
protect this
elegant bird. It is very widespread but
no longer common anywhere, nesting over most of Northern North America
and
migrating as far as about one hundred miles into South America. The population of the southern US does not
migrate but there is a great individuality of habits among these birds. I saw a big female chasing pigeons in January
as far north as Upper Jay, NY, and they are regularly seen in the
February bird
watch in Fort Edward, hundreds of miles north of their normal winter
range
according to the map. Gary Berke
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