Bird Watchers Digest - September/October 2011

ALVARO JARAMILLO ( 2)

your raptor making standard forceful flaps in no particular pattern perhaps, like most hawks do? Or does the wing flap look weird, as though each flap is traveling from the base of the wing out to the tip like a break-dancer doing “the worm”? The latter is something you see in birds that have long outer hands, such as the northern harrier or turkey vulture—it just looks odd. Shorter-winged birds such as a sharp-shinned hawk tend to look snappy when they flap. The hawks in the genus Accipiter—sharp-shinned and Cooper’s hawks and northern goshawk—typically make quick flaps (snappiest in the small species) and then a long glide. But note that the red-shouldered hawk, which is in the genus Buteo, also flaps quickly and glides; this alone separates it consistently from other widespread