To give Brock his due it is quite possible that his description is accurate.
Rough-legged Hawks do winter over in Central PA and throughout PA. Several years ago some were seen very near Hawk Mountain in mid winter down in the farm fields below Bake Oven Knob. I have heard that they are even more common in Central PA.
Wheeler's "Raptors of North America" books note that they average in length and wing span almost exactly the same as Red-tailed Hawks do. See pp 254 and 312 in the Eastern Edition. Plates 404 and 409 in the same edition show pictures of an adult male light morph (lightly marked type) both perched and flying and it could easily be described as "white." It lacks the black carpal patches and is black only on the primary greater coverts.
Bob
Bob,
Thanks for giving me my "due," which was long overdue.
"Horton" wasn't all white like the hawk I saw near Mt. Nittany, which mooreorless suggested was a Rough-legged Hawk, and he sent me a photo that looked very similar.
This one was more typically colored, brown and white and looked very much like the photo in my birding book, "Birds of the Mid-Atlantic Region and where to find them," by John H. Rappole. There is also a dark "morph" of this hawk.
She fit the description perfectly:
"A large hawk with legs feathered all the way down to the toes; mottled brown and white above; buffy with brown streaks on breast; dark brown belly; white tail with dark subterminal band."
Each bird photo and description is accompanied by a map of where and when they can be found. For the Rough-legged Hawk all of Pennsylvania is shaded as a winter habitat. As to it being found in open areas such as farm fields, grasslands, pastures and salt marshes (which it says in the book), that's probably not during winter season. But the three acres of woods across from the house are divided between a large open ball field. When she wasn't hunting squirrels in the park, she sat on a branch on either side of the ball field. At night, she slept at the far edge of the park near the street.
As I said earlier, land development in this part of Central PA is putting pressure on BOP and displacing them from woodland and farmlands that are now being turned into housing developments and shale gas fields and driving them into the suburbs where birds and squirrels are easy pickins.
Plus the ground was covered with snow for most of this long winter. In the winter of 2011-2012, we didn't have any snow accumulation in Jan., Feb, or March. I've lived here 12 years and we've never had any winter resident hawk of any kind.
"Horton" was a female. I saw her next to her mate perched on the same branch. She was about 25% bigger than her mate. She was so big one neighbor thought she was an eagle. but she wasn't that large, I've seen a female eagle from about 30 ft. away at Fisherman's Paradise, and she was gargantuan (the male waiting for her near the nest looked puny in comparison), but the R-L hawk was quite big compared to most of the other hawks that I've seen around here, though she wasn't as big as a Great Horned Owl. I've seen one of those up close in a cage at Shavers Creek. I meant that I'd need an owl bigger than her to scare her off because she was fearless.
Which also fits this behavior description:
"A winter visitor to southern Ontario, the Rough-legged Hawk
shows less fear of people than other raptors, probably due to the fact it has less contact as it breeds in the far north."
But forget the descriptions, let "Horton" speak for herself. Here she is holding the infamous chicken leg in her talons while perched in the kiddie park.
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