Buckley Buteo

Published 2024-07-30
If you drive south from 136th to 120th Avenues on Buckley Road during the summer months, you'll almost always see one or two Swainson's hawks. There are actually two pairs nesting within a half mile of each other this year. The northernmost nest is on the east side of Buckley Road in the trees adjacent to the road, but the foliage is so dense Peter hasn't been able to find the nest after five years of searching. The southern nest location also remains a mystery.

Swainson's hawks arrive in the Denver Metro area by April 15th, when red-tailed hawks are already incubating. The Swainson's immediately set upon nest building and mating. There is about a four to six week delay between when the red-tails hatch and Swainson's hatch, and this means that there aren't two buteo species occupying the same ecological niche and competing to hunt and raise babies at the same time.

We think (but can't be certain) that this hawk is a male, based not only on size, but coloration. While all Swainson's hawks have a rust to deep-brown bib on the breast area, there is considerable variation in the coloration of the "panel" or belly area of the hawk. Hawks which are almost snow-white, with very few spots or markings, tend to be male, but this is NOT a hard and fast rule. These hawks are fairly easy to identify if you look for the dark bib, white throat, and the longer, narrower wings compared to a red-tailed hawk. At 2:17 Peter pulls the camera back, and you can also see that the wing tips are projecting beneath the tail. Swainson's hawk wings are "pointy" at the tips, with a shorter tail, and this body shape assists them in the their annual migration from western North America to Argentina. For a Swainson's hawk nesting on the plains outside of Calgary, Canada, this trip can be nearly 10,000 miles one way.

The calling he's doing signifies to any other passing raptors that Buckley Road is HIS territory, and they should just keep on cruising down the road to find their own, unoccupied poles to hunt from!

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