Our Resident Broad-winged Hawk

Chip

Brought to Sharon Audubon Center: August 9, 1999

Sex: Female

Injury:  Unable to sustain flight and missing left eye

History: The Center received Chip from another local wildlife rehabilitator.  Chip had been hit by a car and suffered from a wing and eye injury.  Chip's eye could not be saved, so veterinarians removed it and she is no longer able to sustain flight due to her wing injury. She now resides with a Red-shouldered Hawk in their outside aviary.  Chip received her name from her continuous call: "chip, chip, chip!"

Broad-winged Hawk

(Buteo platypterus)

Average Height: 1- 1 ½ feet

Average Weight:  1 pound

Wingspan:  2 ½ - 3 ½ feet

Lifespan:  5-10 years in wild

Description:  The Broad-winged Hawk, a very common crow-sized woodland hawk, is the smallest buteo in North America.  It is dark brown above and barred underneath, with silvery-white wings with black tips.  The tail usually has broad, equally-sized bands; three black and two white.

Call:  The call of a Broad-winged Hawk is a high pitch whistle, which often sounds much like a Wood Pewee: "Pee--weee."

Range:  The Broad-winged Hawk covers most of the eastern United States and into Canada from Nova Scotia west to Alberta.  They are not usually found west of the Great Plains.

Habitat:  Broad-wings prefer large hardwood forests or mixed coniferous-hardwood forests near lakes, streams and swamps.

Diet:  This small, woodland hawk eats many small mammals, insects, amphibians and reptiles.  Some of their diet includes frogs and toads, snakes, red squirrels, chipmunks, some small birds, caterpillars, grasshoppers and crickets, earthworms, and crayfish.