I'm very familiar with the Red-tailed and see them almost anywhere, except for environments with denser trees and without much open areas. This time of the year is when I see them perched on lights on major highways located in open to semi-open environments. They've become a very successful bird in urban parts of America. A recreational area that has a few ponds and many trees, along with a semi-open woodland, is home to a Red-shouldered pair. Every year beginning in late February/early March, I hear them being very noisy. I even got to see one of them fly in and perch while I was there in March one year. Cooper's is another one that I see almost anywhere, except for areas that are more heavily developed without enough trees. I recently saw an adult flying low and fast through the condo complex I live in, as if it was targeting prey. The Broad-winged and Sharp-shinned are the ones I hardly ever see or hear most likely due to them preferring forests and larger woodlands. I've never seen migrating groups of Broad-winged's soaring. I've never gotten to see a Northern Harrier all the times I've been to a large local shoreline park and coastal areas that have protected beach, marshland, and open tall grasses.

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Great presentation!! Astonishing knowledge. You have answered so many questions about my observations . Thank you

I was so happy to see Bruce Labar who I birded with often in the 80's in Santa Cruz,CA before he moved to Washington! Wonder if he would remember me.

I’ve got them all over my ranch in southern Colorado. I keep them well-fed at the feeder. ☺️I’m at 7500ft.

House Sparrows and Starlings are now called Trump Birds.

Brown headed cow birds are now called Trump Birds.

Your Harris's Hawk footage at 0:25 is stunning! Amazing light, pose, perch, and background. That scene would make for one of the best still photos of a Harris's Hawk that I can possibly imagine!

YAY! I know it's 4 months later, but I'm only just now watching this episode. Congrats!

Red tailed hawks are huge basically small eagles lol.

I love Mourning Doves, too. They are brilliantly colorful when seen in the right light. I have never heard of anyone who dislikes them, and am a bit skeptical that such people exist. I myself may refer to them as bullies, or fat, but to me those are not bad things at all. Just because people use an adjective that some may think of as derogatory does not mean that they dislike them, because what is derogatory to one isn't necessarily derogatory to another. I actually like birds who are bullies and dominate other birds at the feeders.

My best game changer was joining with a group of established birders!

Thanks for the helpful information to id hawks. I will watch again to learn more. I like watching hawks unless they are watching over my feeders.

Great presentation, thanks for purring this together

Pigeons!! Neither me or my neighbors want these "flying rats" around. A bird feeder that prevents bird seeds falling to the ground and ATTRACTING pigeons would be nice to have.

I often find that to total non-birders they invariably think they're hearing owls in the distance rarher than mourning doves.

Accipiter, Astur, and Circus are all in subfamily Accipitrinae as found by Catanach et al 2024. Genus Circus is sister to the genus Astur and harriers do share many structural/plumage traits with the other accipitrine raptors. Why then categorise northern harriers as "other"? It is more helpful for identification to recognise this relationship.

I really like this video and would love to see more like it.

Saw a Red bellied today!

We’re trying to figure out a sound we hear often in the mid morning. It’s four mid-high whistle notes, like: who,who,who,who…who,who,who,who…who,who,who,who. What bird is that?

After many decades of birding I've encountered all of these birders and been most of them at one time or another. I started out as one you don't mention though: The Hawkwatcher.

I wanna learn how to identify hawks too ,ah

Well said! Never been to these places, but going off of ebird records I couldn't argue!

Fantastic job here Derek you did wonderful here I love the way you covered it . What challenge's so many birders is to tell the difference between a Coopers and a Sharpie , personally Derek I think the easiest way to tell them apart is the Sharpie is so much smaller than the Coopers and also the rounded head gives it away on the Sharpie .

Still not easy. I have a lot of these moving through my Catskills property. Even taking out a chicken once in awhile. But that's okay. I love hawks. It it true that juvenile raptors often appear larger than adults?

Living in Northern Maine, sure I saw one years ago, fishing in remote spot on Long Lake. It was huge and incredible!

You didn't mention that when perched, Red-tailed Hawks look like a football in trees. Deciding if I'm looking at a Cooper's or Sharp-shinned is very challenging for me.

TIL I've been saying Buteo wrong this whole time. (I've only ever read it, not heard it.. I was saying 'byew-TAY-o')

The "Cross" , or big and little 'T' , is my fave.

A coworker recommended this channel. I am enjoying it. Thank you. Peace. ✌

-excited screeching from far away- Okay! Now that I have it out of my system a bit hehe - Wooohooo!! Hawks!! You already know these are among my favorites, hehe - great to know how "Buteo" is actually pronounced, too. (One of my most embarrassing bad habits is not knowing how to pronounce words I've only ever seen in print and never heard out loud!) Lots and LOTS of red-shouldered hawks in my area, and golden eagles. One of the first reasons I started wanting to ID birds at all was because I would see these huge birds near the road and I just didn't want to believe they were ALL "buzzards" (which I now know, black vultures are THE common roadside raptor around here). And come to find out: they weren't all vultures! Immature golden eagles and some of the biggest juvenile red-shouldered hawks can be mistaken for a vulture depending on how they are flying and if you don't have a good frame-of-reference for size. After all it's very hard to tell if you're seeing a vulture high up, or a hawk lower down, when it's just passing over head and you don't have much in the way of trees or anything to give you an idea how far away the bird actually is. And in parts of Texas there was a whole dust-up (back in the 90s I think) about juvenile golden eagles getting shot down by mistake. VERY cool way to present the information, and I really do like this - it feels very classroom and for me that's extremely helpful and positive. Makes my brain latch on better I guess! I also chuckled a bit when you mentioned the debate about "raptors" as a term. Boy is THAT a topic and then some! I recall seeing a series (on PBS Nature of course) discussing dozens of species from sparrow hawks to Stellar's sea eagles and ospreys and even corvids. A truly wild amount of diversity. They talked about the snail kites too which was NEAT. I have to say though - why DO some birds get called hawks in their common name, when they aren't "real" hawks - like the sparrow hawk, you know? I suppose some of it has to do with how general and interchangeable the terms have been, historically speaking. I would absolutely love to see you cover some more of these species though!

I liked this style a lot and this was a good one to do with. I've gotten better at identifying Hawks over the past couple years. But you added some great information that will further help me. Thank you.

i love birds especially hawk too.

Vulture a raptor?? - their feet look like a chickens, their DNA is closest to herons

Wow - great content, well-organized, and a pleasant delivery/presentation! Thanks @Badgerland Birding - I really enjoy your channel. I've recently moved back to Virginia after over 15 years in Guatemala. The big kettles of Broad-winged Hawks passed over my house most years, on their migration, usually sometime in October or maybe late September. It was always great fun to go outside and suddenly see the sky filled with them. It surprised me when you mentioned them - I forgot you'd see them from a Northern viewpoint in the States, when they first start their journey. :) I'll check and see if you have a video on the trip you mentioned to observe their departure. Also, I recently spotted a Red-shouldered Hawk in a big old oak in my yard and appreciate your description of their flights. Now I know for sure that's what I saw on a different day, flying over the field in front of my house!

Definitely a good presentation style! Learned a lot!

Love this format!