Rough-legged Hawk

Today, on a quiet Colorado highway, I encountered two new species for my blog, the coyote and the rough-legged hawk, Buteo lagopus.  I couldn't decide which to write about, so February 17th will have two entries.  How exciting!

Yesterday I bemoaned my difficulty with hawk identification and my trouble with acquiring decent pictures of them.  Today, my main man managed to snap a couple of excellent identification pictures of this raptor on a roadside telephone pole when I stopped the car on a quiet road.  

According to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, "The name 'Rough-legged' Hawk refers to the feathered legs. The Rough-legged Hawk, the Ferruginous Hawk, and the Golden Eagle are the only American hawks to have legs feathered all the way to the toes." 

After these portraits were taken, this raptor took off from the perch, flew low over the open scrubland and even hovered in place for a moment.  The U.S. Forest Service states that this is very common hunting behavior for this species:  "The rough-legged hawk frequently hovers over one spot at an altitude of 50 to 132 feet.  There is also an appreciable amount of low-altitude flap and glide hunting for mice; a rough-legged hawk often will quarter back and forth over open fields."

I am glad to have seen this bird before it flies off on its spring migration.  Only in this area for the winter, its summer breeding range is north in the arctic tundra.