Ferruginous Hawks west of the Continental Divide prefer rabbits as prey so what you see here might be the last thing a Cottontail or Jackrabbit might see.
I love the raised wings of the Ferruginous Hawk, the bright blue sky with just a hint of clouds and the regal raptor soaring above me and the Stansbury Mountains in Tooele County, Utah
Ferruginous Hawks fascinate me, they are large, handsome and regal raptors. This one just appears to me to be surveying its kingdom from the top of a ranch gate in the Centennial Valley.
Today I thought I would post images of the juvenile Buteos that I see most often in Utah and Montana, they are Red-tailed, Rough-legged, Ferruginous and Swainson's Hawks.
Ferruginous Hawks are the largest hawks found in North America. They inhabit low elevation, open areas in the western United States and some locations in southwestern Canada and winter in southwestern US and Mexico.
There aren't many people in the west desert of Utah thus the raptors and other birds that live there are not habituated to people so they are very skittish even when using a mobile blind.
Ferruginous Hawks are the largest hawks found in North America, the "regalis" in the latin name means "kingly" or "regal" and I have to agree with those descriptions.