# Whitetail Hawk!



## Foxhunter (Jan 1, 2010)

Female Northern Harrier Hawk in Newton County. See pics, way below.


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## slip (Jan 1, 2010)

wow, your lucky to even see him! and awesome pics to go with it


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## DRB1313 (Jan 1, 2010)

Interesting,  I've never seen one, so I did some google searching and
this looks like what I found, but the strange thing is, they don't
show here (Ga), in the range of where it lives.
It was showing S. Texas coast, but mostly in the southern Hemisphere.
Wouldn't that be cool to find one here.
Go get us some pics

Maybe Jason can shed some light on the subject.


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## Nicodemus (Jan 1, 2010)

I`ve never seen one, except in pictures. Must be a vagrant. Mighty purty hawk.


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## Foxhunter (Jan 1, 2010)

I'm going to do my darndest to get some pics!! I see him hunting this 1000+ acre pasture accross from Charlie Elliot ( a 6500 acre WMA). I haven't found anything that says they live in Georgia. I was confused because I thought it was a bald eagle ... until i saw his head .. then i was really confused. It looked like a hawk with a white tail to me so I came home and googled it. My brother suggested it might be an Osprey but it's definitely not an Osprey. He seems to like to fly low to the ground when hunting. He likes to purch on the fence posts and telephone poles along the hwy. I have a good mind to call the DNR ... it may interest them!  I see him all the time, it's almost a daily occurance.


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## Foxhunter (Jan 3, 2010)

*Habitat*

I didn't see the hawk / young eagle .. whatever it is.. but this is where it hunts .. literally thousands of acres of open land on both sides of the road.


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## Canebrake (Jan 3, 2010)

lot of hawks over there...Mr. Pete Spears leases some pasture to Burnt Pine Plantation....directly across from the WMA entrance.  those hawks sit up on phone poles and wait for their breakfast

Pete told me the hawks clean up a few quail/pheasant before the guides ever get back to the field with the "hunters"


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## Foxhunter (Jan 3, 2010)

Canebrake said:


> lot of hawks over there...Mr. Pete Spears leases some pasture to Burnt Pine Plantation....directly across from the WMA entrance.  those hawks sit up on phone poles and wait for their breakfast
> 
> Pete told me the hawks clean up a few quail/pheasant before the guides ever get back to the field with the "hunters"



Have you seen the bird I'm talking about? It definitely has a white tail but I don't know if it's a young eagle or a white tailed hawk.


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## Nicodemus (Jan 3, 2010)

Foxhunter, it`s not a juvenile bald eagle. They are brown and white speckled all over. Mostly a brown background, with some white spots.


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## Foxhunter (Jan 3, 2010)

I hope i can get some pics soon, it really does just look like a hawk with a white tail.


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## ryanwhit (Jan 3, 2010)

Could it be a northern harrier?  they have a large white patch on their tail, but the entire tail is not white...


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## Nicodemus (Jan 3, 2010)

ryanwhit said:


> Could it be a northern harrier?  they have a large white patch on their tail, but the entire tail is not white...



Coloration, body shape, and tail shape is different from a male harrier.


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## Canebrake (Jan 4, 2010)

I've seen harriers out there but never one of those whitetail hawks...not saying there isnt one there though!

I'll keep a lookout


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## Foxhunter (Jan 4, 2010)

Canebrake said:


> I've seen harriers out there but never one of those whitetail hawks...not saying there isnt one there though!
> 
> I'll keep a lookout



Thanks for responding .. i bet it's a male northern harrier. I haven't seen it for the last three days .. i hope it didn't freeze to death .. lol


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## BOWHUNTER! (Jan 6, 2010)

Driving and taking pics again I see...


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## Foxhunter (Jan 8, 2010)

BOWHUNTER! said:


> Driving and taking pics again I see...



No .. I pulled over


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## Nitram4891 (Jan 10, 2010)

I saw a bird today that looked like what you are describing between Newborn and Clybel on the edge of a field.  It had a white tail but with horizontal dark lines accross it, not solid white.


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## Foxhunter (Jan 10, 2010)

Nitram4891 said:


> I saw a bird today that looked like what you are describing between Newborn and Clybel on the edge of a field.  It had a white tail but with horizontal dark lines accross it, not solid white.



YOU SEE!! I'm not crazy .. lol lol lol .. the one I see all the time flies back and forth across hwy 11 from the first Charlie Elliot entrance (coming from Mansfield) to the pasture accross the street that Mr.Spears owns. Your description fits my bird perfectly. I've mostly seen him / her from behind and it really looks like the hawk pics I posted at the beginning of this thread. Please keep your eyes peeled, I'm dying to know what this bird is. Thank you!!!


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## Mr.MainFrame10 (Jan 10, 2010)

Maybe you can get somemore pics, because from the one you got, it doesn't appear to have a solid whitetail like the picture you found searching out on Google. Beautiful hawk though!


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## Foxhunter (Dec 27, 2010)

omg!! This morning, it happened! I was driving down the road and there it was, in a field! I pulled over and started taking pics. It's a female Northern Harrier!


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## Resica (Dec 27, 2010)

Nice find!!  That was quick.


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## Nicodemus (Dec 28, 2010)

That last set of pictures is a female harrier. But that pictures at the top of the thread is a different hawk. Look at the tail. A harrier has one white band on a darker background.

Nice pics.


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## blakely (Dec 28, 2010)

I saw a hawk, just like the ones in the first pictures, a week or so ago. It was in Early County. I got a good look at it, as it was flying around a corn field. It was definitely the same bird as the one in the top pictures. I was kinda stumped, trying to figure out what it was, because it didn't look like our normal hawks. It was just north of Blakely on Hwy 27.

I snow geese in the same field yesterday afternoon. They were the first snow geese that I've ever really noticed around here.


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## Lee Woodie (Dec 28, 2010)

That white tailed hawk is a rare treat to see in this area way to go on such a find


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## Canebrake (Dec 28, 2010)

nice pics...I've been working out there the past month or so and have seen several northern harriers hunting those fields on their way south.  

They hunt against the wind and hover about ten feet above the pasture looking for cotton rats and such.


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## NCHillbilly (Dec 28, 2010)

The only time I see those marsh hawks/harriers here is in the winter. Saw one in central SC a few weeks ago. Like canebrake said, they fly low over the fields and hover in the same place often.


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## Foxhunter (Dec 29, 2010)

Yeah, the first pics I posted a year ago were pics I found on the internet of a whitetail hawk. That was last year. Finally, the other day, I was able to take pics of the actual bird that I've been seeing and discovered it's a female Northern Harrier Hawk. Very cool! It's really neat to watch them hunt. They fly low to the ground, back and forth across the highway from one side to the other. Beautiful birds!


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## bkl021475 (Jan 5, 2011)

I googled the images for a white tailed hawk and that is what I've seen flying over the field behind my house on more than one occasion, very white with black tips on its wings. I've been wondering what it was, I could tell it was a smaller hawk. I'm glad I found this thread!


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## QuackAddict (Jan 6, 2011)

We see lots of northern harriers this time of year at both our Newton and Jasper county farms.  They are always scanning the fields just over the top of the cover looking for release birds.


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## Sling (Jan 20, 2011)

I have a Northern Harrier that stays and hunts in the field across from my home every fall and winter.  No shortage of food until this year. The developer couldn't sell the lots in the field so he cut it, plowed it and planted it in wheat. I don't seee the Harrier and many days as I used to, and I expect the quail will be gone come spring.
Love to watch him hover and hunt.


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