Review of "Hawks at a Distance: Identification of Migrant Raptors"
Hawks at a Distance: Identification of Migrant Raptors
Author Jerry Liguori. Princeton University Press, 193 pp. $19.95
Reviewed by Clay Christensen
October 25, 2011
From the very cover, this is an intriguing book! There are seven photos of hawks in flight on the cover and my first impulse was to try to identify each one. Since there isn’t a key to those photos, you’ll have to use the book and its fantastic individual species entries to identify them.
Liguori covers 20 of the most common migrant raptors and nine more uncommon migrants, like the Mississippi Kite, often seen annually in Minnesota. Each specie account features an average of 25 photos of a bird in flight, six per page, shown against the sky in various light conditions, just as you’d see the hawk. Major diagnostic marks are visible in each picture, so they represent the hawk just coming into the limits of identification. The emphasis is on distance, as the title says.
One of my most difficult ID challenges is telling the difference between a sharp-shinned hawk and a Cooper’s hawk. The Cooper’s looks like a larger version of the sharpie, but that’s not helpful unless you see both at the same time. Trying to identify one always sends me back to my field guide. Liguori’s book has 37 photos of the sharp-shinned hawk and 22 of the Cooper’s hawk, including a page with the two of them side by side. It’s a great way to study the differences and the similarities.
Another ID puzzler is one of the most common hawks, the red-tailed hawk. It’s very variable in plumages. Liguori has 79 photos of red-tails in flight, covering Eastern and Western adults and juveniles, light and dark morphs, and the Harlan’s subspecies, again light and dark versions. It’s the most photos for any of the hawks in the book and the coverage is pretty spectacular.
Most people can identify an adult bald eagle, but in his 41 photos, Liguori shows juveniles and various stages of sub-adult bald eagles, stages that many of us need help identifying.
Then, he presents 33 photos of golden eagles, again covering juveniles and sub-adults. Many bird watchers have trouble distinguishing between juvenile goldens and bald eagles, so Liguori’s work here will help.
Toward the back of the book, each species has a full page of silhouettes in flight, nearly 50 views per page. They show the bird from a high view coming straight on, then birds passing overhead, left to right, right to left, even going away. These silhouettes are really helpful when the bird isn’t close enough to see any identifying marks or features. They emphasize shape as a clue to identity.
Fall migrant hawk watching begins in earnest in September and runs through November. Here in Minnesota, the best viewing is at Hawk Ridge in Duluth. Most migrating hawks coming down from Canada would rather avoid flying over Lake Superior. So they follow the shoreline down to the west end of the lake at Duluth, giving us great views as they pass over the ridge north of the city.
Liguori’s first book, Hawks from Every Angle: How to Identify Raptors in Flight (Princeton University Press, 2005), shows close-ups of hawks in flight, covering the same species as this his second book. This would probably be a better book for a beginning hawk watcher. Since it features close-ups, it will allow one to get more confident with hawk identification.
I’ve got both books and would recommend them heartily to hawk watchers, new and old.
This review appears on the Birdman of Lauderdale blog at www.ParkBugle.org and is used with permission.
