Guide to Hawk Watching and Raptor Identification
Welcome to our raptor identification and hawk watching guide. Diurnal raptors hold a special place for both of us. David is a professional hawk watch counter who has worked a combined 11 seasons at the Braddock Bay Hawk Watch in New York, Ashland Hawk Watch in Delaware and Montclair Hawk Lookout in New Jersey, and Bobby's initial interest in birds came from raptors and hawk watching (but grew well beyond that in short order).
Our goal with this guide is to provide all the resources that anyone in the northeastern U.S. and mid-atlantic would need to learn about raptor identification, and answer all your questions about how to go about finding and enjoying hawks, eagles, falcons, and other raptors. You can also expect this guide to grow over the remainder of 2023, so check back for more resources.
Contents of this guide:
Raptor Identification
Shape is often a key feature to start with when identifying raptors — especially distant ones — and usually the species within a family have a similar shape. So, if you are just getting started and don't know how to articulate the difference between a falcon and a hawk, or are just unsure what terms like Buteo and Accipiter mean, it would be a good idea to first familiarize yourself with the different raptor families.
Buteos
Built to soar, with broad wings and relatively short tails, the Buteos are represented by 4 expected species in the northeast, including Red-tailed Hawk and Red-shouldered Hawk year-round, Broad-winged Hawk during the warm months, and Rough-legged Hawk in the winter.
Accipiters
The shorter wings and long tails of the Accipiters make them all suited for hunting in wooded areas where maneuverability is important. 3 species are found in North America. Many people will see the crow-sized Cooper's Hawk the most frequently, given their habits of hanging out near bird feeders in residential areas, but the smaller Sharp-shinned Hawk is also relatively common, and you can see decent numbers of migrants on the right days at hawk watches. The large American Goshawk (formerly called Northern Goshawk until 2023) rounds out the family, but is pretty rare in most places, especially in recent years. So, most accipiter ID questions revolve around Cooper's vs Sharp-shinned Hawk, which is one of the harder raptor identification challenges.
Eagles
Eagles are large and mainly dark birds. Everyone is familiar with the unmistakable plumage of adult Bald Eagles, but various immature plumages over the 5 years it takes to attain the adult plumage can cause confusion with Golden Eagles, which are much less common most places in the east.
Falcons
Whereas the Accipiters are built for wooded areas, falcons are built for wide open spaces. They have pointed wings and dark eyes, and aren't very closely related to the other raptors. The family is represented by 3 expected species, American Kestrel, Merlin, and Peregrine Falcon. The large Gyrfalcon is a very rare winter visitor from the arctic.
Others
These species don't fit into the families above. An adept fisherman, the Osprey has features and behaviors uniquely between eagles and hawks (and gulls!). The harrier family holds many species throughout the world, but only the Northern Harrier occurs in North America. Vultures aren't technically raptors, but their size and tendency to fly and soar like raptors mean that they need to be included when identifying raptors.
Practice
If you've spent much time with other LycoBirds resources, you'll know that we love creating practice tools and quizzes. After all, repetition (with some training wheels) is one of the best ways to solidify your knowledge and confidence.
Our Favorite Raptor ID Books
If you want to take a deeper dive into identifying raptors, we recommend these four books. A good progression if you want to buy all of them is The Crossley ID Guide: Raptors, followed by Hawks in Flight, and then Hawks from Every Angle, and finish with Hawks at a Distance. If you are only buying one or two, you can probably skip the Crossley (our free identification resources cover the basics sufficiently well as a substitute) and go with Hawks in Flight and Hawks at a Distance, which are both fantastic. But to get to a truly advanced level, there's no substitute for time spent in the field.
Disclosure: We earn commissions for purchases made through the links above.
Need help identifying a raptor?
We do our best to respond to people who reach out to us with any questions, but since there's only two of us at LycoBirds and we both have other jobs and responsibilities, sometimes we can't respond to all emails immediately. If you are on Facebook, the Raptor ID group is a great resource for identification questions, and has many experts who are happy to help. The ABA also maintains a general bird identification group called What's this Bird? where ID questions are usually answered within 5 minutes.
Visiting a hawk watch
You've got your identification skills down, so it's time to actually go out and do some hawk watching! At its heart, hawk watching is super simple: stand in one place and look for raptors flying over. However, just because you can hawk watch almost anywhere, doesn't necessarily mean you should. Especially as you are getting started, going to an established site can be extremely helpful, since you'll be at a place that will certainly have birds and others will likely be present that can help you spot and identify birds migrating over.
Hawk counters
This section is geared towards the behind the scenes of how a hawk watch is run, and information for those who might want to pursue an official hawk counting job.
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