There have been several reports of Broad-winged Hawk already this spring so they were on my radar screen. Yesterday afternoon I was getting gas in Ashton and looked up to see a distant interaction between hawks. A Red-tailed was chasing a much smaller buteo so I immediately thought Broad-winged. I watched for a minute or two and the smaller bird behaved just like the Red-tailed only with faster wing beats. All I could really make out from the distance was stark white under side of the wings and a white band on or near the base of the tail. Northern Harrier crossed my mind but the whole shape and behavior was wrong. There really isn’t anything else it could have been so I’m confident in the ID despite the distance and short duration of the observation. This is the second Broad-winged I’ve seen here in spring. I’ve seen three in the area in October and one in June hunting stone flies that were hatching from the Henry’s Fork of the Snake River downstream from Island Park dam. Not anywhere near as cool as the Little Blue Heron seen earlier this week (unfortunately not by me) but still a pretty good bird.

Cliff

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Cliff and Lisa Weisse
Island Park, Idaho
cliffandlisa@…