97
Winter 2014
Escarpment Magazine
The Red-tailed Hawk is a medium-sized bird of prey that
breeds and lives throughout the North American continent,
except in areas of unbroken forest or in the high arctic. It is
legally protected in Canada, Mexico and the United States
by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.
You will often see these birds as they soar above open fields,
slowly turning circles on their broad, rounded wings. When
flapping, their wingbeats are heavy. In high winds they may
face into the wind and hover without flapping, eyes fixed on
the ground. Their attack is a slow, controlled dive with legs
outstretched. Other times you may see them perched atop
telephone poles, or tall, bare branches eyes fixed on the
ground to catch the movements of a vole or a rabbit, or simply
waiting out cold weather before climbing a thermal updraft
into the sky.
The name is drived from the uniformly brick-red tail. Although,
the immature Red-tailed Hawk’s tail is patterned with numer-
ous darker bars. The simplest way to find a Red-tailed Hawk
is to go for a drive, keeping your eyes peeled along fence-
posts and in the sky. The first step with identifying any hawk is
to use its size and shape to decide what type you're looking
at. There are three main groups: buteo, accipiter, or falcon.
Make sure to look for the buteo shape (broad, rounded
wings; short tail), then check field marks like the dark bars on
the leading edge of the wing. Buteos have broad, rounded
wings and short, wide tails, and you often see them soaring
without flapping.
Red-shouldered Hawks, another common buteo, tend to be
smaller than Red-tails with a banded tail and warm brown
barring below. Swainson's Hawk has a dark trailing edge to
the underside of the wing, and a dark chest. From a distance
you might confuse a soaring Red-tail with a Turkey Vulture
(also very common in these parts especially in summer), but
Turkey Vultures have longer, more rectangular wings, which
the birds hold above horizontal, forming an easily visible V.
Turkey Vultures are also much less steady when they soar.
*
The Red-tailed Hawk has significance in
Native American culture. Its feathers are
considered sacred by some tribes, and
are used in religious ceremonies.
Photo | JR Compton
