Swainson's Hawks

Vermilion Parish,    Summer 2005

I made several early morning trips into the rice fields west of Lafayette during the first week of May. On three of the mornings I passed the intersection of Hwy 700 and Tan Rd. shortly after sunrise and found this adult Swainson's Hawk preening on the power line. It was very approachable and allowed me to walk up under it without flying. One Sunday, Paul Conover and I found one adult sitting on the rice field levee in the field along side the intersection.

The coupling on the line must have fit it's claw well as it was always standing on it. I never saw more than one hawk. I now think another may have been with the nest. I quit making my trips into the rice fields, and did not check on the hawk after mid May.

The last week of July, I was included by Bill Fontenot  in a forwarded e-mail of Swainson's Hawks being seen and photographed by Charlie Hohorst at the same intersection. Charlie reported seeing at least one adult and two immature. Charlie then passed along this excellent photograph of the two immature hawks together in the field at the intersection.

On Saturday, August 7th, the crew of David Muth, Phillip Wallace, Curt Sorrells, and Mac Myers came over from New Orleans for some shore birding in the rice fields. Paul Conover and I met up with them at Best Stop to fill up the ice chests with boudin and headed for Tan Rd with both a shorebird field and the hawks in mind. We found several hundred Wood Storks circling up on a thermal over a great rice field of several thousand mixed shorebirds mid way along Tan Road. Driving down to the intersection with Hwy 700 we found two adult Swainson's circling off to the west over the fields, but no immature hawks.

We returned late that afternoon and found one of the immature Swainson's trying his skills at hunting in the field at the intersection. He was approachable and at one point flew to the road side for a photo. . He then flew south over a cane field, and we followed on the road. We found it sitting in the next field just south of the 700/Tan Rd intersection with the other immature and two adults in the same field. All four together.

     Dave Patton,  Lafayette, LA