Why Red-Tailed Hawks Are Awesome!

With the critical care cages at the Rocky Mountain Raptor Program steadily filling with sick and injured birds (it is the peak of busy season, after all) it's hard not to notice that a large portion of the newcomers are Red-Tailed Hawks.  This year's kids are all fledged and living life on their own, but not all of them are proving successful.  The summer's early drought in combination with the High Park Fire effects and the perfect climatic conditions for mosquitoes carrying West Nile Virus have created a difficult first year for a lot of birds.  Along with Swainson's Hawks, American Kestrels, and Great Horned Owls, the Red-Tailed Hawks are having a noticeably hard time of it.  So, with cages of sick Red-Tailed Hawks in the RMRP's care, what better time to write about how amazing they are?  Maybe the extra attention to their awesomeness will help bolster their spirits and make them well again.

You know what a Red-Tailed Hawk looks like, even if you don't realize it.  They're the hawks that you see soaring high above fields and hills while looking for lunch, or perched on a telephone pole scanning the ground for dinner.  Admittedly, there are many species of hawks that soar and perch on power poles, but Red-Tails are among the most common.

fpcs.edu

www.birdphotography.com

You've probably also noticed their namesake red tail at some point as it catches the sun mid-flight.  But did you know that immature Red-Tailed Hawks don't have a red tail until they're adults?  Until the bird is in its second year, the tail is gray with dark brown bars.  And because raptors don't drop all their feathers at once when they molt, the new red tail comes in one or two feathers at a time, so sometimes their tails look like this:

10000birds.com

Harlan's Hawk from schmoker.org

There are many variants of the Red-Tailed Hawk, including the Harlan's Hawk, which is such a strikingly different variant that some Humans consider it a separate species altogether.  Harlan's Hawks have blackish and white patterned feathers, variations in their tail coloration, and even have shorter primary flight feathers than other Red-Tailed Hawks.  For more pictures of Harlan's Hawks in Colorado click here.

Another famous thing about Red-Tailed Hawks is their call, but you may not have known who you were listening to.  The most common raptor noise in movies and on TV is the call of the Red-Tailed Hawk, but it's usually played in the movie when a Bald Eagle is on screen, or when a Turkey Vulture is seen hovering over a dying cowboy (also inaccurate).  In fact, there are so many comical misuses of the Red-Tailed Hawk's call that I have decided right now to write an entire separate article about it, so stay tuned!  I promise it will be funny and educational.

Educational Red-Tailed Hawk at the RMRP

Red-Tailed Hawks are not as big as Ferruginous Hawks, but they are still pretty big, and like most raptors the females are about 30% bigger than males.  Generally speaking, Red-Tailed Hawks weigh 2-4 pounds, and have a wingspan of about 4 feet.

Another reason they're pretty well-known is because they live all over North America.  Seriously.  You'd be hard pressed to travel anywhere on this continent and not find Red-Tailed Hawks.  They're almost as ubiquitous in North America as the Peregrine Falcon, but not quite.  Red-Tails live in every sort of ecosystem except continuous forest (they leave that to forest-dwellers like Goshawks) and the Arctic.  But everywhere else, from tropical islands to the Grand Canyon, you can find Red-Tails.  In fact, the densest population of these birds is in El Yunque National Forest in Puerto Rico.

Red-Tailed Hawks primarily eat rodents and other small mammals, but they'll also snack on birds (especially pigeons in cities) and snakes.  In fact, the Red-Tailed Hawk has a super-cool way of hunting poisonous rattlesnakes.  They spread their wings and tempt the snake with their feathers, kind of like a matador taunting a bull with a red cape.  When the snake strikes at the wing feathers, the bird reaches in with a foot and grabs the snake.  The National Geographic video below shows the matador move, and although they missed any footage of the snake striking at the wings, it's still cool to watch.

A few other facts that don't require an entire paragraph:

• They're monogamous, only finding a new mate when their previous mate dies.  
• Great Horned Owls like me are occasional predators of Red-Tailed Hawks, but not the other way around (that's right, I'm the top of the food chain).  
• They're also known as chickenhawks, even though they're not very well known for hunting chickens.

Although nothing much is happening these days, the Cornell Red-Tailed Hawk Webcam is an excellent way to get a closer look at these birds.  Cornell installed two HD webcams at the Red-Tail nest on their campus, and you can tune in any time during breeding season to watch the male and female hawks build their nest, lay the eggs, incubate them, hatch them, and then raise and fledge the chicks.  Be sure to check it out next season!

The Humans at the RMRP admit dozens of Red-Tailed Hawks every year.  Many of them come in hit by cars, shocked on power lines, or [this year] sick with West Nile Virus.  Please send healing thoughts to those birds currently in the RMRP's care!  If you would like to support the care of these incredible birds, click the "Donate Now" link on the right side-bar!

Educational Red-Tailed Hawk for the RMRP

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Why Ferruginous Hawks Are Awesome!

By request, I'm going to write today about one of my favorite feathered brethren.  I live with many birds here in the Educational Ambassador cage complex, ranging from Screech Owls to Rough-Legged Hawks to Peregrine Falcons to Barn Owls.  But the bird just down the hall from me is easily the Queen of the Hawks.  She reminds us all what it means to be a fierce and wild predator, and consequently I have a deep respect, sight unseen, for any of her species that come through the RMRP's doors.

jimsburnsphotos.com

That species is the Ferruginous Hawk, a large and majestic Hawk that sometimes seems more like an Eagle. While the Great Horned Owl is the baddest of the local Owls (yeah, that's right!), the Ferruginous Hawk is the baddest of the Hawks.

What makes them so impressive?  It's a combination of appearance and attitude.  Say you are walking in the plains and you surprise a Ferruginous Hawk.  There are probably two things that you notice right away:  it's huge, and it's coming right for you.

Let's start with appearance.  The Ferruginous Hawk is the largest hawk in the world (well, it's a tie, actually, between the Ferruginous Hawk and the Upland Buzzard of Asia), measuring 4-5 feet from wingtip to wingtip, and weighing 2-5 pounds.  In comparison, small Golden Eagles have 6 ft wingspans, and weigh ~5-6 pounds.  Ferruginous Hawks stand tall and proud with a regal posture, which perhaps is why their Latin name, Buteo regalis (royal hawk), fits them so well.  They're so big that they're often mistaken for Eagles.  In fact, numerous species of Eagles around the world are actually smaller than Ferruginous Hawks (it's takes more than size to qualify as an Eagle).

Jo Matson

Along with being big, they're also beautiful, with striking coloration and features.  The most prominent color on their undersides, whether they're flying or perching, is white (except in dark morph varieties).  Their backs and the tops of their wings are darker, with rusty-reddish upper backs and shoulders, and rusty-reddish feathers on their legs.  The rusty leg feathers are what give the bird its common name, Ferruginous (iron, rust).  The feathers on their legs are doubly notable because only one other Hawk in North America has feathers all the way down to its feet: the Rough-Legged Hawk.

David Quanrud

But it's when you look at their face that you see what an amazing bird this is.  They have pale eyes that look right through you, long beaks, and a giant gape (mouth).  This all lends a very dinosaur/predator/no-nonsense look to them.

Then there's the attitude.  If they're mistaken for Eagles based on size, the same mistake could be made in regards to attitude.  Ferruginous Hawks are mean and wild, and have no qualms whatsoever about defending themselves.  When the Humans are taking care of an injured Ferruginous Hawk here at the RMRP, only very experienced catchers take on this bird.

The reason for this intense attitude could stem from where these birds live: on the plains.  While nests will be built in trees if they're available, Ferruginous Hawks usually nest in open areas such as rock outcrops, or simply on the ground.  The plains environment just doesn't provide many protected nesting opportunities.  Since nesting sites are so exposed, the birds have to be able to defend themselves not only from aerial predators like most Raptors have to, but also from terrestrial predators like Coyotes.  And if the chicks are on the ground for the first month of their lives, you can expect the chicks to be as fierce as the parents.

Baby Ferruginous Hawk at the RMRP. Chicks have a buff-colored bib. 

Being a plains bird, the Ferruginous Hawk's diet includes a wide range of Prairie critters.  The staple food items are the Black-Tailed Jackrabbit and the Prairie Dog.  Other prey includes anything from tiny Meadowlarks to enormous White-Tailed Jackrabbits, which weight twice as much as the Hawk.  The birds hunt in a variety of styles, including hunting from tall perches or low rocks, soaring, or even waiting on the ground next to a rodent burrow for lunch to appear.

Ferruginous Hawk on a power pole

As you can imagine, with Prairie Dogs making up a large portion of the Ferruginous Hawk's diet, the Human penchant for exterminating Prairie Dog towns has been hard on the Hawk's population.  While the birds are hovering around "species of concern" status in the US and Canada, the birds are officially classified as Threatened in the state of Colorado (along with Burrowing Owls for similar reasons).  Not only is their prey-base disappearing, but so is their habitat as much of the land is cultivated, irrigated, developed, or ranched.  With such large wingspans, these birds also have frequent run-ins with power lines.  Sadly, many Ferruginous Hawks are shot, as well.

If you see a Ferruginous Hawk in the wild, consider yourself lucky!  Be sure to appreciate its awesome beauty and power, and wish it the best of luck out there in the harsh plains environment.