Rough-legged Hawk at Sheffield

We decided to go to the Maugerville/Sheffield area yesterday in search of hawks. We found a light phase Rough-legged Hawk and as well saw: an American Eagle, 4 Rusty Blackbirds and a small flock of Snowbirds.

The Rough-legged Hawk breeds in the Arctic regions and during the winter months moves into regions of southern Canada and the U.S. At this time of year we can most often find one or more of these hawks hunting the open fields bordering the Saint John River at Sheffield. We found this hawk, in the photo above, perched in a tree overlooking hwy #105, but as our car approached slowly it left its perch and flew across an open field and landed in a tree a fair distance away.
The arrow in the photo above shows where the Rough-legged landed in a distant tree after having left its perch in the tree by the highway. The following pictures of its flight were taken from the same distance. These edited photos do not display the sharpness and details which I would have preferred, however they do show the Rough-legged's landing approach.


Other posts on Rough-legged Hawks can be found at:
http://naturetales.blogspot.com/2007/01/dark-morph-rough-legged-hawk.html
http://naturetales.blogspot.com/2006/12/rough-legged-hawk.html