Ferruginous Hawk in flight pano, West Desert, Tooele County, UtahFerruginous Hawk with wings up – Nikon D300, f6.3, 1/4000, ISO 640, Nikkor 200-400mm VR with 1.4x TC at 400mm, natural light, not baited or set up

I love to say “Ferruginous”, I’m not sure exactly why but I think it is a fun word to pronounce, especially when I roll the “R’s”. Yes, it is probably a little odd to enjoy saying it so much but I don’t apologize for it! I love to say “Flammulated” too.

Ferruginous Hawks (Buteo regalis) are the largest hawks found in North America. The “regalis” in the Latin name means “kingly” or “regal” and I have to agree with those descriptions. The English name; “Ferruginous”, means “rusty” and that also describes some of this hawk’s coloring very well.

Ferruginous Hawk lift off from a weather monitoring station, West Desert, Tooele County, UtahFerruginous Hawk lift off from a weather monitoring station – Nikon D300, f6.3, 1/2500, ISO 640, +0.7 EV, Nikkor 200-400mm VR with 1.4x TC at 355mm, natural light, not baited or set up

Ferruginous Hawks are found in western North America in terrains from grasslands to open deserts. I often see them perched on utility poles, old snags, on top of sagebrush bushes or where I often find this species in Tooele County, on top of a small weather reporting station. My bad timing allowed the weather station to still be obvious in the photo above but these large raptors do take off quick and I wanted a series of shots as it lifted off, this was the first frame of that series.

I haven’t had the best of luck getting quality photos of this species, it seems that quite often they take off facing away from me and I like having eye contact with my subject. Once I spotted one slowly flying in to where I stood but alas I didn’t have my camera in hand. I told a friend to grab his camera and he got some decent images whilst I got nothing but a great view of the Ferruginous flying low and slow over my head. I hope my luck changes. Or I’ll need to seriously consider spending a lot of time waiting where I know I see these raptors.

Flight shot of Ferruginous Hawk with wings down, West Desert, Tooele County, UtahFlight shot of Ferruginous Hawk with wings down – Nikon D300, f6.3, 1/3200, ISO 640, Nikkor 200-400mm VR with 1.4x TC at 400mm, natural light, not baited or set up

Yesterday I found this Ferruginous Hawk perched twice on the weather station so I was able to get two series of lift off shots and was quite pleased to have those opportunities. I like that the image above shows the “rusty” plumage on the wing, shoulder and back of this gorgeous hawk. I have not seen the dark morph of this species yet though I understand they are equally as stunning as the light morph.

Any time I see a Ferruginous (rolling my “R’s”) Hawk, they take my breath away

Life is good.

Mia

Click here to see more of my Ferruginous Hawk photos plus facts and information about this species.