The Harris' Hawk is a slim, long-legged, and quite docile hawk of the desert scrub in the American Southwest. It is a medium-sized to large hawk with brown body plumage, chestnut shoulders and legs, and a yellow face. Sexes are alike in appearance. It is swift in flight and graceful, often perching atop giant saguaro cacti in a diagnostic pose, holding its body quite horizontal. Common in groups, the Harris' Hawk both breeds and hunts in social units, which number among the members of adults, subadults, and juveniles from previous broods. This species is well known for having as many as three broods a year.
SIZE
The Harris' Hawk is the size of a large buteo hawk. Females are much larger than males. Lengths average 18 to 23 inches (46 to 58 centimeters) for both sexes. Wingspans are up to 46 inches (117 centimeters) for both sexes. Weights average 2.2 pounds (998 grams) for females and 1.5 pounds (690 grams) for males.
MORPHS
The Harris' Hawk has no morphs or unusual plumages.
SPECIFIC DESCRIPTION
Adult - Flight
- tricolored effect: shoulders, wing linings and thighs are chestnut, flight feathers, body, and tail are blackish or dark brown, and tail with a wide white base and tip
- long tail
Immature - Flight
- like adult but underparts are streaked with white on belly
- underwing shows chestnut lining
- undersurfaces of flight feathers are gray with large white crescent at the base of the primaries
- undersurface of tail is gray with a few darker bands and has a white base and a narrow white tip.
- uppersurface of tail like an adult's
- wings narrower than adult
SIMILAR SPECIES
The two other large black hawks of the Southwest, the Zone-tailed Hawk and the Common Black-Hawk, have blackish, not chestnut wing linings. Both have black-and-white banded tails, not a black tail with a white base and a white tip. Virtually all dark-morph buteos lack the chestnut wing linings combined with the dark tail with its white base and white tip of the Harris' Hawk. A dark Ferruginous Hawk has rusty wing linings and a dark body, but shows a whitish tail and whitish flight feathers from below. A Red-shouldered Hawk shows reddish wing linings but has a black and white banded tail, barred flight feathers, and a lighter body color. The immature White-tailed Hawk is superficially similar to the Harris' Hawk but has cold dark brown body plumage with a large white breast patch, and lacks the Harris' Hawk's chestnut shoulders. Its upper tail surface is gray with fine black bars, a thin white tip and a narrow white rump totally unlike the broad white base, black tail and white tail tip of the Harris' Hawk. The subadult White-tailed Hawk has some rufous on the shoulders, but less of it than the Harris' Hawk, and also has a white back and is white below with dark barring. The Snail Kite has a similar white base to the tail but shows all dark underwings, and no chestnut shoulders or under wing linings.
OTHER NAMES
The Harris' Hawk is also known as the "Bay-winged Hawk", "Eastern Harris Hawk", and "Dusky Hawk."
ETYMOLOGY
The scientific name Parabuteo unicinctus translates to "close relative of a buteo" (para - Greek; buteo - Latin) that has "one girdle or band" (uni - Latin; cinctus- Latin), a reference to the white at the base of the bird's tail.
