Swainson's hawk
Buteo swainsoni
Identification Tips:
- Sexes similar
- Short, dark, hooked beak
- Large, broad-winged, broad-tailed hawk
- Very long-winged for a Buteo, with wings tapering noticeably at the tip
Light morph adult:
- Gray-brown head
- White chin patch
- Reddish breast
- White belly and underwing coverts
- Dark flight feathers with faint barring
- Dark brown back and upperwing
- Gray tail, dark above and pale below, barred with narrow dark bars
Light morph immature:
- Back and upperwing brown with pale edgings
- Pale breast, belly and underwings coverts
- Dark streaking on chest, often forms a necklace
- Dark flight feathers
- Pale supercilium and face with dark eyeline and malar steak
Dark morph adult:
- Dark brown head, back and upperwing
- Underwing coverts often quite rufous
- Flight feathers dark with barring, but paler than underwing coverts
- Deep reddish brown breast with brownish barring below
- Pale undertail coverts
Dark morph immature:
- Like light morph immature but much more heavily streaked
Similar species:
Dark morph adult similar to dark morphs of Rough-legged, Ferruginous,
Broad-winged, Short-tailed and Red-tailed Hawks, but the pale undertail
coverts set Swainson's apart from all of them. The long wings, with
dark (not silvery) flight feathers, the pale undertail coverts and the
narrowly banded tail eliminate Broad-winged. The long wings with dark (not
silvery) flight feathers and pale undertail coverts eliminate Short-tailed.
Most dark morph Red-tailed Hawks have some remnant of a red tail and all
Red-tails have a broader-winged, broader-tailed shape and fly with more of a
dihedral. Light morph Swainson's is distinctive with its pale underwing
coverts that contrast sharply with the dark flight feathers.