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. |
|---|---|
| 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.
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