[cobirds] Rough-legged Hawks, Elbert and Lincoln Counties

Barb and I were pleased to see 9 Rough-legged Hawks, all light morph, this afternoon in Elbert and Lincoln counties.

• 3 south of Matheson on Elbert CR 149 to CR 66, spaced a couple of miles apart.
  
• 2 more, a male and a female, at the top of a tree east of that junction, 149 & 66. (Seemed unusual for a solitary hawk species in non-breeding season.)
  
• 4 more along I-70 between Limon and Bovina, spaced a couple of miles apart.
  

We also saw a Prairie Falcon, and two prairie Merlins, all spaced far apart.

It seems that during some winters Rough-legged Hawks are fairly common in Colorado, other winters not so much. They eat lemmings in the Arctic, so maybe their numbers fluctuate with the lemming population, like Snowy Owls. I wonder if anyone keeps an annual Colorado census of this sort? I wasn't able to glean such data from eBird.

Horned larks were not abundant for us today, and no Lapland Longspurs despite many patches of freshly plowed earth.

More on Rough-legged Hawks from the internet, if you're interested:

As Swainson's Hawks retreat to South America, Rough-legged Hawks descend from the Arctic tundra to take their place. Buteo lagopus. "Lagopus" is Greek for "feet like a hare's". Yep, they're sort of furry, covered with feathers, like ptarmigan, another Arctic bird. John James Audubon called it Rough-legged Falcon. Wikipedia calls it Rough-legged Buzzard.

They breed in the Arctic and Subarctic regions of North America and Eurasia, the only buteo that has a complete circumpolar distribution. Along with the kestrels, kites and osprey, this is one of the few birds of prey to hover regularly--we saw that activity today. There are three subspecies.

They have small talons and prey on small rodents, like lemmings and voles, but are also known to take young snow buntings and Lapland longspurs. (Yes, my excuse!) They can live 19 years in the wild.

Good winter birding!
Tom Wilberding
Littleton, Colorado

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