Does an immature harris hawk seen in phoenix look black with a white tip to the tail and white on back of its belly?
Yes, an immature Harris's Hawk
in Phoenix
matches that description, though their appearance is more streaked than solid black. While adults are a solid dark chocolate brown (often appearing black), immature birds have patchy white or buff streaking on their bellies and chests. Their tails are dark with a white tip (terminal band) and a white base (rump), similar to adults but often with a narrower or paler white band.
Identification Marks for Immature Harris's Hawks
Belly/Underparts: Heavily streaked with white, cream, or buff. Some can appear nearly as dark as adults, but most show a much lighter, "patchy" underside.
Tail: Mostly dark/black with a distinct white tip and white base. Immatures may also show fine dark barring across the tail.
Shoulders and Thighs: Even as juveniles, they show the species' signature reddish-brown (rufous) patches on their shoulders and legs, which helps distinguish them from other hawks.
Wings: In flight, you may see pale or white patches near the wingtips.
they are commonly seen on telephone poles and in tall trees, often preying on pigeons.
Would you like to know about other similar-looking hawks in the Phoenix area, like the Swainson's Hawk?
i never saw one on the ground before, two adults perched in bush nearby as it hopped up and down on the ground playing with a bug or something. after maybe ten minutes it flew to a roof.
That behavior is classic Harris's Hawk. Unlike most other raptors, they are highly social and often hunt or hang out in family groups—which explains the two adults "babysitting" while the youngster practiced its skills.
Immature hawks are notoriously curious and clumsy. What you saw was likely "play-hunting." Young hawks will pounce on insects, sticks, or dried cow dung to sharpen the coordination they'll need for bigger prey like rabbits or lizards later on.
A few reasons they are so comfortable on the ground:
Social Security: Because the adults were perched nearby acting as sentinels, the juvenile felt safe enough to focus on the ground.
Group Hunting: Harris's Hawks are the "wolves of the sky"; they are one of the few raptor species that hunt cooperatively on the ground, sometimes even flushing prey out of bushes for each other.
Urban Adaptability: In Phoenix, they’ve become very bold around houses and roofs, treating suburban yards like their personal training grounds.
Did you notice if the adults were making any harsh, rasping screams while the young one was on the ground?
more like loud peeps
The "loud peeps" you heard were likely "Chirp Calls," which Harris's Hawks use specifically for social communication within their family groups. While most hawks are famous for harsh screams, the social nature of Harris's Hawks leads to a much wider variety of softer, communicative sounds.
Why they were "peeping"
Coordination: Adult Harris's Hawks often use these peeps or chirps to coordinate movement and stay connected with each other while hunting or watching over juveniles.
Anticipation: These rhythmic strings of 5–10 "peep" notes are frequently heard when birds are anticipating a food delivery or prey exchange.
Juvenile Development: Younger birds are especially vocal; they make weak peeping calls and loud, plaintive "food-begging" screams to solicit attention from the adults.
The Harris's Hawk "Language"
Unlike the solitary Red-tailed Hawk, which mostly just screams to defend territory, the Harris's Hawk has a complex "vocabulary" including:
Low Burrs/Purrs: Sounds used when the group is relaxed and hanging out together.
The Alarm Call: A long, grating 3-second scream used only when they feel threatened by an intruder.
Chirps and Peeps: The sounds you heard, which function almost like a "check-in" to reveal their location to partners.
What you witnessed—two adults watching a juvenile practice on the ground—is a perfect example of their unique cooperative family structure.
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Harris's hawks hunt in packs. In the Sonoran Desert, family groups of up to seven hawks work together to chase, surround, and flush prey using coordinated tactics that no other raptor on earth has been documented using. When a rabbit hides in a woodrat midden, one hawk lands and walks in on foot to flush it while the others perch above every exit and wait.
James Bednarz published the landmark study in 1988 after years of fieldwork in southern New Mexico. He identified three distinct cooperative hunting strategies, each deployed depending on the terrain and the prey's behavior. In the leapfrog pursuit, subgroups of two or three hawks take turns chasing prey across open ground. One group stoops while the other watches from a perch. When the first group loses momentum, the second group takes over. The prey is never given a chance to rest. The hawks relay until the animal makes a mistake or collapses from fatigue.
In the surprise pounce, multiple hawks converge on a target simultaneously from different directions. A rabbit that dodges one hawk turns into the path of another. The attack comes from angles the prey cannot cover at once. Bednarz documented that hawks attacking from multiple directions had a significantly higher capture rate than solo hunters because the prey could not commit to a single escape route without running toward another hawk.
The flush and ambush is the most tactical of the three. When prey, usually a desert cottontail or jackrabbit, reaches the safety of a woodrat midden, a dense fortress of sticks, cactus pads, and debris that can be three feet high and nearly impenetrable from above, the hawks do not give up. They surround the midden. Each bird takes a perch covering a different exit. Then one hawk drops to the ground, walks up to the midden, and pushes inside on foot to drive the prey out. The rabbit bolts. The hawk on the nearest perch takes it.
A raptor walking into cover on foot to flush prey into a waiting aerial ambush is not something any other hawk species does. It is closer to how wolves drive elk toward pack members holding a bottleneck than to anything in the raptor field guide.
The groups are families. A typical Harris's hawk hunting unit consists of a dominant breeding pair and one to five auxiliaries, usually offspring from previous years who stay with their parents instead of dispersing. Some groups include unrelated hawks that joined the family and were accepted. Bednarz found that the bonds formed during the breeding season, when the group cooperates to raise young, carry directly into winter hunting. The birds that nested together hunt together. The social structure does not shut off when the chicks fledge.
The communication is subtle. When one subgroup spots prey, the birds shift posture. They go horizontal on the perch and start bobbing their heads, a signal that tells the rest of the group to converge. Audubon described it as the hawks knowing what the others are doing at all times. The coordination looks rehearsed because in a sense it has been. A young hawk that stays with its family for two or three years before dispersing spends that entire time learning the system from the inside.
One behavior has no equivalent in any other raptor. Harris's hawks back-stand. Multiple birds will perch on the same saguaro cactus arm or fence post, stacking directly on top of each other, one bird standing on another's back. The function is debated. It may be a social bonding display or a practical solution to limited perch space in a desert where the only tall structures are saguaros and utility poles. Either way, no other hawk species does it.
The Harris's hawk is the most popular species in falconry worldwide specifically because its cooperative instinct transfers to working with a human partner. A hawk that evolved to hunt alongside family members will hunt alongside a falconer as if the person were part of the group. It follows, responds, and coordinates with a willingness that other raptors do not show because other raptors were never social to begin with.
Source: Bednarz (1988), Science / Audubon / Tucson Bird Alliance / Cornell Lab of Ornithology / Birds of the World.
