Northern Harrier
In addition to having keen eyesight, Northern Harriers also possess exceptional hearing that helps them locate and capture prey by sound. They can detect hidden prey from a distance of about 10 or 12 feet. Their exceptionally large ear openings are concealed behind an owllike facial disk.

Northern Harriers are birds of open country-fields, pastures, grasslands, meadows, and marshes-across North America, Europe, and Asia. This habitat preference largely eliminates competition with most other hawks. They do, however, share this habitat with Short-eared Owls. During the winter, Short-eared Owls and harriers both roost on the ground in groups, and in areas where both species occur the roosts can be close together, perhaps even shared. As the harriers gather for the night, the owls begin to hunt. Harriers perch on the ground, on fence posts, or on low stumps much more often than in trees.
Northern Harrier Range Map

Although a variety of prey may be taken including waterfowl, rabbits, ground squirrels, frogs, and insects, the primary prey is the meadow vole. In years when voles are abundant, they may compose 95 percent of the harrier's diet. During the breeding season, young passerine birds such as Bobolinks are also important. The larger females tend to specialize on mammalian prey, whereas the smaller and quicker males take more birds. Harriers may spend 40 percent of daylight hours in flight, covering 100 miles per day coursing over short grassy areas in buoyant flight with wings held aloft in a shallow V. Much prey is caught by surprise, but when a vole or bird takes cover in shrubbery, the harrier will hover overhead, blocking escape, finally dropping on the victim with upright wings or spiraling down in a corkscrew motion.

Male harriers perform a spectacular courtship display flight of looping arcs known as the "sky dance." Males engage in a series of steep dives and ascents, which from the side look like a series of Us; the head-on view looks like a series of barrel rolls. As many as 75 repetitions have been observed. Younger males tend to have a single mate, although many older adults tend to be polygamous, especially in years when voles are abundant. One male can tend a harem of as many as four females. Harriers vigorously defend their territories against intruders, including humans and other hawks.

Males might initiate nest building by building a platform of sticks on a high spot in a marsh or wet meadow, but females do most of the construction, either on the base provided by the male or in another spot. Four or five eggs are laid and incubated by the female, whom the male feeds. After about a month the eggs hatch and both parents begin feeding the hatchlings, which fledge at about 35 days. The young are dependent on their parents for another month or two and then leave the home range. They migrate separately from the adults.

Northern Harriers fly quite high during migration and present a very different pattern than during the hunting flight. While hunting, harriers alternate gliding with a few wing beats and often display a distinct dihedral angle to the wings; migrating harriers employ steadier wing beats and more level wings.

Description: Northern Harriers are slender hawks with long, slightly rounded, barred tails. They have long wings, long yellow legs, and conspicuous white rumps. They have owllike facial ruffs and adults have yellow eyes. The sexes differ in plumage.

Males are the lightest colored of the common hawks, with a pale gray mantle and wings. The wing tips and trailing edges of the wings are black. The undersides of the wings, breast, belly, and undertail coverts are white with variable amounts of light chestnut spotting on the breast.

Juveniles of both sexes and females have brown upperparts (except the white rump). Females are larger than males. Their underparts are whitish, washed with cinnamon, and streaked with brown longitudinal stripes. The under wing coverts are buffy streaked with dark brown, and the primaries and secondaries are barred brown on white.

Juveniles look similar to females, but their under wing coverts, breast, and belly are rusty orange rather than the streaked brown of the adult females. The juvenal plumage is held for about a year but begins to fade by spring. A molt in summer produces a second winter plumage in which the sexes differ, but juvenal males are browner above than full adults are, and juvenal females have fainter breast streaking. A molt during the second summer produces full adult plumage.


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