How to Identify Broad-winged Hawk Feathers

What Broad-winged Hawk Feathers Look Like

The Broad-winged Hawk is a compact, crow-sized buteo (body 13-17 in, wingspan 32-39 in), and its feathers reflect a forest-dwelling raptor built for soaring on short, broad wings rather than a long-distance flier.

• Tail feathers: short and broad (about 7-8 in), with a bold pattern of two or three wide blackish bands separated by narrower white or pale gray bands, and a clean white terminal tip. The banding is crisp and high-contrast, not smudgy.
• Flight feathers (primaries/secondaries): 8-12 in long, brownish-gray above; from below they are pale whitish with fine, evenly spaced dark barring and a darker trailing edge along the wingtip.
• Body/contour feathers: adults show warm reddish-brown barring on a white to buffy ground on the breast and belly; juveniles instead show brown streaking rather than barring.
• Shaft color: pale cream to light brown on most feathers, darkening slightly toward the tip.

Step-by-Step: Is This Feather From a Broad-winged Hawk?

1. Measure the feather. Tail feathers around 7-8 in and flight feathers in the 8-12 in range fit a mid-sized buteo — too big for a songbird, too small for a large eagle or Red-tailed Hawk primary.
2. Check the tail banding. Look for just two or three wide, sharply defined black bands against white — not a series of many thin bands.
3. Look at the underside barring. On flight feathers, the bars should be fine, regular, and pale rufous-to-gray rather than blotchy.
4. Note breast/belly pattern if it's a contour feather. Reddish-brown barring on white (adult) or brown streaking (juvenile) both point to this species rather than a plain gray or solid feather.
5. Consider where you found it. A feather under a forest canopy edge or near a woodland soaring route in eastern North America (summer) fits Broad-winged Hawk far better than open grassland.

Similar Species & How to Tell Them Apart

• Red-shouldered Hawk: has a tail with more numerous, narrower white bands (four or five, not two or three) and a translucent pale crescent near the base of the outer primaries that Broad-winged Hawk lacks.
• Red-tailed Hawk: much larger feathers overall; the adult tail is warm rufous with only a single thin dark subterminal band, not multiple bold black bands.
• Cooper's Hawk: an accipiter, not a buteo — its tail feathers are longer and more graduated with a single clean white tip band, and its flight feathers are more heavily and evenly barred without the buteo's broad-banded tail pattern.

Where & When You'll Find Them

Broad-winged Hawks breed in deciduous and mixed forests across eastern North America, nesting inconspicuously in the canopy. Feathers turn up most often near woodland edges and forest interiors in summer, when adults are provisioning nests. In fall, huge migratory kettles funnel south through mountain ridgelines toward Central and South America, so molt largely happens before migration; on the wintering grounds in tropical forest, feathers can be found year-round near quiet forest perches.