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Swainson's Hawk at Congaree Bluffs, Calhoun County, SC



Hi C-Birders,

Today I went out to Congaree Bluffs Heritage Preserve hawk watch today to
start the fall hawk watch season. I found John Grego already on duty there
so we spent a few hours watching. We saw at least 20 Mississippi Kites, but
none of them seemed to be migrating.

We did see two migrant raptors. One was a nice, adult Bald Eagle flying down
the Congaree River. The other was a Swainson's Hawk!

At about 12:20 PM John and I noticed a very dark Buteo soaring over the
Richland County side of the river, over Congaree Swamp National Monument. We
watched it for about 10 minutes as it gradually drifted away to the east. We
first saw it at about 300 meters away, and followed it until we lost it
about 5 km away. It was a very dark Buteo, dark above and below, except for
white undertail coverts and a bit of white at the base of the tail. It was
slender-winged for a Buteo, and had a relatively long tail. It flew with a
slight dihedral, and with wings bowed like those of a soaring Osprey. I am
confident that we saw an adult dark-phase Swainson's Hawk. I have seen lots
of Swainson's Hawks out west and in Florida (I used to live in Dallas, where
we had Swainson's Hawks breeding about 1o miles from my house), but I do not
have a lot of experience with the dark phase. My first impression was of a
dark phase Short-tailed Hawk, but the jizz was all wrong. The tail was too
long and the wings were to slender and long for a Short-tailed Hawk. The
slender jizz seems to eliminate Red-tailed Hawk, as does the white undertail
coverts.

The Swainson's Hawk was a state bird for me, as well as a first record for
Congaree Swamp National Monument and probably a first record for Richland
County. Unfortunately the bird was already over Richland County when we
first saw it, so we cannot count it for Calhoun County. A really cool bird.
Hopefully it will hang around for a while, but it was probably migrating
through. I think this brings the number of hawk species seen at the Congaree
Bluffs Hawk watch to 15 (not including the two vultures). We still need
Goshawk, Rough-legged Hawk, and White-tailed Kite. Bring 'em on!

Robin Carter
Columbia, SC
rcarter@sc.rr.com