The Christmas Bird Count Is a Window to a Changing World
A veteran counter reflects on shifts in New Jersey's birds during the past 40 Decembers, for better and for worse.
Juvenile (light morph). Photo: Marilyn Grubb/Chipabirdee Images/Audubon Photography Awards
Buteo lagopus
Conservation status | Local populations in the Arctic go up and down, largely as a result of rodent populations there. Overall numbers of Rough-legged Hawks are apparently healthy. |
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Family | Hawks and Eagles |
Habitat | Tundra escarpments, arctic coasts; in winter, open fields, plains, marshes. Spends the winter in open country, including grasslands, coastal prairies and marshes, farmland, dunes. Breeds mostly on tundra, in areas having cliffs for nest sites; some breed along northern edge of coniferous forest zone. |
Often hunts by hovering over fields, watching for movement below. Also hunts by watching from a perch, or patrolling low over ground.
Usually 3-5, sometimes 2-6. In some areas, supposedly may lay more eggs in years when rodents are abundant. Eggs pale bluish-white, fading to white, blotched with brown and violet. Incubation is by female, roughly 31 days (male may sometimes sit on eggs briefly). During incubation, male brings food for female. Young: Female remains with young at first; male brings food, female feeds it to young. Later, both parents hunt. Age of young at first flight about 5-6 weeks, and they remain with parents for another 3-5 weeks.
Female remains with young at first; male brings food, female feeds it to young. Later, both parents hunt. Age of young at first flight about 5-6 weeks, and they remain with parents for another 3-5 weeks.
Mostly rodents. On breeding grounds, feeds heavily on lemmings and voles. During high population cycles, lemmings may be more than 80% of summer diet. Also eats many birds. In winter and migration, eats voles, mice, ground squirrels, other small mammals, plus occasionally birds, frogs, insects. May readily feed on carrion in winter.
In breeding season, members of pair circle together high in air. One may perform sky dance, alternately flapping to high elevation and then diving steeply. Nest site is usually on a narrow ledge or niche in high cliff. Sometimes nests on slopes, atop large rocks, even on level ground. At edge of forest, may nest in top of tree. Nest is a bulky structure of sticks, bones, debris, lined with grasses and twigs.
Audubon’s scientists have used 140 million bird observations and sophisticated climate models to project how climate change will affect this bird’s range in the future.
Zoom in to see how this species’s current range will shift, expand, and contract under increased global temperatures.
Choose a temperature scenario below to see which threats will affect this species as warming increases. The same climate change-driven threats that put birds at risk will affect other wildlife and people, too.
A veteran counter reflects on shifts in New Jersey's birds during the past 40 Decembers, for better and for worse.
Many familiar species depend on the Arctic for breeding. Discover seven of them and test your bird smarts with this quiz.
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