About a week ago, we drove into the driveway and glanced over at the bird feeders in the bare branches of the lilac tree in the yard. There, holding still as a statue to the underside of a branch, was a white-breasted nuthatch. It didn’t make the slightest motion despite the car driving in. Immediately we knew this must be a life or death situation for the bird—a hawk had to be nearby. We scanned the trees in the surrounding area and sure enough, there was a sharp-shinned hawk sitting in a birch tree about 50 feet away. When we got out of the car the hawk flew away. Only then did the nuthatch begin to move again.

We’ve seen three species of hawk (four if you count bald eagles) within a week, all right in our neighborhood.  Most hawks that spend the winter here in Maine have to specialize in catching smaller birds to survive. Of regularly occurring winter hawks here, only the rough-legged hawk and the red-tailed hawk (and the occasional wintering red-shouldered hawk) focus more on small mammal prey then small bird prey.

Probably the most common wintering hawks that people are likely to see around neighborhoods and backyard feeding stations are the Cooper’s hawk and the sharp-shinned hawk. Both of these are members of the accipiter family along with their bigger sibling, the goshawk. The accipiters are characterized by their long tails and relatively short and rounded wings. This is in contrast to falcons, which have long tails and fairly long and pointed wings, and buteos (like the red-tailed and rough-legged hawks) that have short tails and long wings. All three accipiter species feed almost exclusively on birds. The goshawk, being larger than a crow, generally goes after more sizable prey and is famous for being good at catching ruffed grouse. Goshawks can occasionally come into suburban areas near woods to try for larger songbirds but they are predominately more woodland birds.

Sharp-shinned hawks are the smallest of three accipiters, about the size of a blue jay. Thirty or forty years ago they were the most common wintering hawk in our area, and they are still relatively common. But over the last few decades the once rather uncommon Cooper’s hawk has now become the more common wintering hawk to see. Cooper’s hawks are intermediate in size, between sharp-shinned and Goshawk, often appearing to be roughly the size of a crow but with a much longer tail. Because of their larger size they can hunt a wide variety of bird prey; they often go after mourning doves and the common rock pigeons found in the downtown areas of many towns and cities.

Two other bird-eating hawks are now often seen in Maine, the merlin and the peregrine falcon. Both of these are members of the falcon family, famous for being incredibly fast and acrobatic. Accipiters often  sit quietly in a tree and then drop in low for a surprise attack, even pursuing their prey into obstacle-laden thickets where these hawks are incredibly adept at maneuvering. In contrast, falcons like to zoom in over more open areas and try to get their prey into the air where they can overtake it or dive forcefully down on it from above. Merlins are the smallest of the regularly wintering falcons (the American kestrel is similarly small but rarely here in winter). They are similar in size to a sharp-shinned hawk but have pointed, not rounded, wings and are much darker overall. You are most likely to see a merlin zipping by while the chickadees and other small birds give their alarm calls.

Peregrine falcons are the largest and most dramatic of the regularly occurring wintering hawks here in Maine. They are more like the size of a gull, though shaped differently with long, pointed wings and a relatively long tail. Here in Maine in winter many of the peregrine falcons seem to specialize mostly in catching and eating pigeons, thus tend to be seen in areas with lots of them. But they can also catch ducks and probably occasionally gulls or other birds foolish enough to tempt fate in their presence. One year we found one on the Matinicus Island Christmas Bird Count in early January. There are no pigeons out on Matinicus so that one must have been hunting ducks or perhaps the small flocks of purple sandpipers that frequent the rocky ledges there in winter.

Still lots of winter left—keep your eye out for those winter hawks!

Jeffrey V. Wells, Ph.D., is a Fellow of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Dr. Wells is one of the nation's leading bird experts and conservation biologists and author of the “Birder’s Conservation Handbook.” His grandfather, the late John Chase, was a columnist for the Boothbay Register for many years. Allison Childs Wells, formerly of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, is a senior director at the Natural Resources Council of Maine, a nonprofit membership organization working statewide to protect the nature of Maine. Both are widely published natural history writers and are the authors of the book, “Maine’s Favorite Birds.”