Northern Harriers used to be called Marsh Hawks, as they often hunt in open wetlands--but "harrier" is a more accurate term, for they are by no means limited to swampy ground. In fact, they are one of the characteristic birds of the tall grass prairie. My mentor, KSU ornithologist John Zimmerman, wrote in The Birds of Konza: The Avian Ecology of the Tallgrass Prairie
In the tall grass prairie, those spots are filled by the Prairie Chicken, the Upland Sandpiper, the Grasshopper Sparrow, Dickcissel, and Meadowlark--and the Northern Harrier. Other hawks stay close to trees, returning to a favorite branch after hovering or diving for prey. But the Northern Harrier needs no perch. It "harries" its prey by pursuing it from the air. It can thus make a good living in an expanse of grass. Northern Harriers have been found in the Flint Hills during every month of the year (a few breed here, but most breed further north). They are most numerous and noticeable in the winter, when the calories provided by obliging rodents help them withstand the cold and prepare for the breeding season ahead.
Every glimpse I get of these gliding hawks lifts my spirits! Of course, these hawks aren't on earth to be my inspiration. They are here to survive, to pass their genes on to their progeny, to fulfill some mysterious purpose of their own. And yet in a way I can't completely explain, the link between us is not sentimental. It is tied somehow to my own survival, to the well being of future human generations, and to the still-unfolding mystery of our own purpose here on earth.
Thank you, Margy, for that review of the bird world in Kansas. Except for a few places where Black Birds congregate in such numbers as to damage crops, there is far more benefit to farmers from the birds than any damage they do.
I've been a farmer most of my life and I marvel at the grace and ease that the hawks, I can't identify them by species, float through the air and dive to the ground to snatch rodents. There have been times when I estimated up to a hundred busy in a field of heavey wheat stubble that I was tilling in preparation for a summers rest to accumulate moisture profile for the fall planting season.
I agree with you regarding your affection for the hawks, Ken. I spent 12 years on a farm in Texas and my most memorable and joyous sounds were those of the hawks. Even today, whenever I hear the squawking, I lapse into pleasant memories of barefoot summers, visions of gentle morning dew, sunsets of millions of changing colors morphing right before our eyes, breezes moving everything, skies and clouds forming and floating through - and not a human anywhere near. Hawks. Of the sky and ever present. Like friends. No, hawks are really like family on the farms. Their chatter keeps us company. I love the hawks.