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Rough-legged Hawk

:
Rough-legged Hawk
Qiirayuli

Watch this hawk hunt for one hour, and I guarantee you that your sense of wonder will come back like a shock.

That's what I did regularly when I lived in Scammon Bay during the early 1980's. Almost daily on my walks in late summer and fall and on my skis in spring, I would see these amazing hawks flying somewhere on the mountain behind the village. That was their home, and when I found them they were either courting, building their nest, hunting or training their young to hunt.

Watch them as they soar like an eagle, then swoop down after their diminutive mammalian prey on the ground. Or as they cruise low over the tundra like a harrier, then abruptly stop to hover in mid-air like a kestrel, and as suddenly plunge to the surface and grab a red-backed vole. Or, best of all, watch them catch the thermals buffeting off a hilly or craggy landscape and ride them in place with no wing flapping. It's as if they're dangling there from some hidden thread, completely motionless, their underwings fully exposed, waiting for someone to point and say, "I knew it was a Rough-leg. I could tell by its black wrists."

Of course, in Scammon Bay, the Rough-leg (named for the feathers that extend to their toes) is the only hawk of its kind. By this, I mean it's the only buteo, or broad-winged, hawk in the area. Not in the entire Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, mind you, because its cousin the Red-tailed hawk also lives farther to the east in the more wooded areas. The Rough-leg prefers the tundra, or what is sometimes called the "periglacial" region of Alaska, i.e., any habitat similar to that found near glaciers.

In the periglacial zone around Scammon Bay, Hooper Bay and Chevak, the Yupik people call these hawks, "Qiirayuli," because of the squalling nature of one of their calls. The Yupik name literally translates as "the one who is expert at making a squalling call."

They make this particular call on the nesting grounds in spring when they are either perched near their nest on a narrow rock ledge or flying in the immediate vicinity of the nest. They also have another call which they utter in spring while circling in the sky. This one is more of a plaintive whistle like that of the Red-tailed hawk and is intimately associated with their short courting period.

Since Rough-legs nest in an arctic environment, they don't have long to perform their aerial mating displays in spring. But if you are there on the nesting grounds and you are lucky enough to see these displays, I promise you will be dazzled.

In spring I used to go up to nearby Castle Rock and watch these birds do their "sky dance." Both male and female would be spiraling and soaring and whistling close to each other when all of a sudden the male would fold his wings and drop out of the sky in a spectacular dive, then as suddenly pull up in the air again, making the form of a U. He did this time after time, certainly to impress the female with his prowess, but probably also because it felt so good.

She must have been duly impressed because nest building began shortly thereafter on a cliff ledge selected by the male. He delivered all of the nest materials and she did the actual construction, starting with sticks and plant stalks, then lining the nest with grasses, feathers and down.

She, of course, laid the eggs -three to five of them colored pale bluish-white, splotched with brown and violet. She also did 99 percent of the 31 day incubation duty, but her mate brought her food regularly every day while she was on the nest.

The eggs hatch asynchronously, that is, one a day for as many days as there are eggs, so the chicks are stairstepped in size. Mom stays home at first to take care of her young, but once again dad brings home the bacon which mom then feeds to the young. As the nestlings grow larger, both parents hunt and feed their young.

After 5-6 weeks of a menu filled with voles and lemmings, mixed with a few insect and bird tidbits from time to time, the young are ready to fly on their own. They don't fly very far, however, and remain near the nesting territory for another 3-6 weeks where they learn to hunt from their parents. They also learn how to do some of that awesome soaring and swooping and hovering and hang-gliding I mentioned above.

Too soon, however, the Alaskan periglacial winter starts kicking in and it's time for the Rough-leg family to migrate to warmer climes. Anything else the young need to know before they become bona fide adults they'll have to learn along the way south and in their winter home in the Lower 48 states.

While in Scammon Bay I sometimes took my young son Steven out to watch the Rough-legs. Once after returning to the house I wrote a poem about it to remember our time together.

We were searching for them
in the hard winds
blowing from the south
and the closing mists of spring,
my young son Steven and I,
knowing they were around
somewhere,
hoping to see them
somehow...
so we stopped at Castle Rock
and hid
and waited in a cave
made of great hinged rocks
on the leeward
where Steven crawled around
on the green lichen-mats
inside
while I wondered
if the hinge would
break...
so we crawled out
to throw snowballs
downhill
sidling into the wind
trying to avoid its bite
but finally facing it,
Steven loving it,
going back for more.

Suddenly we saw them
stepping
off a near sheltered ledge
into a flat lifting
glide in the mists,
just hanging there,
tilting their tails
between
the uplifting of two
rocky spires,
holding fast there,
in the buffet and play
and silent rush
surrounding and
forcing them
up and out,
till the mists
quietly grasped and pulled them
away from our ken and reach.

Then Steven and I too departed
to find our way back
to Scammon Bay
and home.

Rough-legged Hawk

» List of Yupik Birds

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