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 Rough-legged Hawk (Buteo lagopus)

Rough-legged Hawk | Buteo lagopus photo
Rough-legged Hawk
Photograph by Walter Siegmund. Some rights reserved.  (view image details)




Rough-legged Hawk | Buteo lagopus photo
Rough-legged Hawk
Photograph by Walter Siegmund. Some rights reserved.  (view image details)





ROUGH-LEGGED HAWK FACTS
Description
The Rough-legged Hawk is a large hawk with long broad wings and pale white feathers with dark training wing edges. The tail is white at base with broad dark band at tip. There are light and dark color morphs. The male light morph has brown back, pale streaked chest, dark mottling on belly, some dark barring on pale brown wing feathers, narrow dark bands near base of tail. The female has brown back, dark belly, less barring on the wings, and one or two dark bands on the tail. The dark morph is similar, but browner. Juvenile birds are similar to adult female, with browner tail with less distinct tail band.

Size
length 47cm - 52cm. Wingspan: 132cm - 138cm

Environment
Open coniferous forest, tundra, grasslands, farmland.

Food
Small mammals, birds.

Breeding
Nest is a large bowl of made of sticks lined with grass, small twigs. Nest is built on cliff ledge. Lays one to seven dull white eggs with brown blotches.

Range
Breeds across Alaska, northern Canada, northern Europe, northern Asia. Winters in southern Canada, much of the United States except the south eastern states from Mississippi to North Carolina. Also central Europe and Asia.

Classification
Class:Aves
Order:Falconiformes
Family:Accipitridae
Genus:Buteo
Species:lagopus
Common Name:Rough-legged Hawk


Relatives in same Genus
  White-tailed Hawk (B. albicaudatus)
  Short-tailed Hawk (B. brachyurus)
  Red-tailed Hawk (B. jamaicensis)
  Red-shouldered Hawk (B. lineatus)
  Gray Hawk (B. nitidus)
  Ferruginous Hawk (B. regalis)
  Swainson's Hawk (B. swainsoni)







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