Broad-winged Hawk

Fascinating facts about the Broad-winged Hawk

• Every September, hundreds of thousands of broad-winged hawks funnel through a single mountain pass in Pennsylvania — so many that radar operators once mistook the migration for a weather system. A single day's count can exceed 100,000 birds, all riding invisible pillars of warm air called thermals to glide south without flapping. They'll travel 4,000 miles to Central and South American forests on wings that barely move, burning almost no energy. It's one of the largest raptor migrations on Earth, and it happens in a window of just 6 weeks.
• A broad-winged hawk's hunting strategy depends entirely on its birth season — spring chicks hunt insects in mid-air like agile acrobats, while late-summer chicks switch to hunting rodents on the ground. The difference isn't learned: it's driven by prey availability during their critical fledging weeks, and their skill set locks in by the time they're independent. A bird born in April becomes a flycatcher; one born in June becomes a mouser. Timing in the nest predicts a lifetime of hunting style.
• The phrase 'hawk' conjures images of soaring desert hunters, but broad-winged hawks are forest ghosts — they hunt from hidden perches among dense canopy, scanning the understorey for movement. Their short, broad wings are built for bursts of speed through tangled trees, not open-sky soaring like their larger cousins. Watch one for hours and you'll see mostly stillness punctuated by sudden, violent strikes. They've traded the hunter's visibility for the forest's invisibility.
• Male broad-winged hawks are roughly 30% lighter than females — a size gap so extreme that a pair can hunt the same territory without competing for prey. The male takes small insects and nestlings while the female pursues larger rodents, effectively dividing the forest into two hunting zones. During breeding season, he'll deliver food by the dozens while she incubates, relying on a weight advantage that lets him manoeuvre through gaps she cannot fit through.
• Broad-winged hawks produce a piercing whistle — three clear notes that don't sound like any other raptor's call, so distinctive that ornithologists use it to track migration populations without ever seeing the bird. The call carries through dense forest where visual surveys fail, turning invisible migrants into countable voices. A single observer with binoculars and patience can monitor thousands of passing hawks just by listening.

At a glance

About the Broad-winged Hawk

As the sun rises over the forest canopy, a Broad-winged Hawk takes to the skies, its broad wings beating in a slow, powerful rhythm that carries it effortlessly on the thermal currents, a master of the wind and the trees. With eyes that scan the landscape below, this bird of prey navigates the world with a silent precision, its wings tucked in as it dives and swoops through the shadows in pursuit of its next meal. Its annual migrations, a testament to its remarkable endurance, take it thousands of miles between its summer and winter habitats, a true marvel of nature's ingenuity.

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