Red-tailed hawk Facts for Kids

Quick facts for kids Red-tailed hawk

Conservation status
Least Concern (IUCN 3.1)
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Class:	Aves
Order:	Accipitriformes
Family:	Accipitridae
Genus:	Buteo
Binomial name
*Buteo jamaicensis*

The red-tailed hawk (Buteo jamaicensis) is a buzzard. Sometimes it is called a chickenhawk, though it does not normally eat chickens. It is a bird of prey. It breeds throughout most of North America, from western Alaska and northern Canada and as far south as Panama and the West Indies. It weighs from 1.5 lb (1 kg) to 3.5 lb (2 kg) and its wingspan goes from 43 in (1,092 mm) to 57 in (1,448 mm).

The red-tailed hawk is a carnivore and eats shrews and mice. They have keen eyesight to see even the smallest mouse scamper across a field. It can swoop down at least 80mph per hour. It will pick up its prey, dig its talons into its body and kill it and eat. It can swoop down so fast that it can pick up its prey in less than 5 seconds.

Because they are so common and easily trained, most hawks got for falconry in the United States are red-tails. Falconers may take only 'passage hawks' (which have left the nest, are on their own, but are less than a year old). This is so not to affect the breeding population. Adults, which may be breeding or rearing chicks, may not be taken for falconry purposes and it is illegal to do so.

Passage red-tailed hawks are also preferred by falconers because these younger birds have not yet developed adult behaviors, which would make training much more difficult.

Images for kids

In flight showing the red tail
A red-tailed hawk at John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge at Tinicum,
A western juvenile in flight
Close-up of red-tailed hawk's head
Characteristic red tail
Immature in California
A juvenile red-tailed hawk
Red-tailed hawks prefer areas with groves of tall trees from which to hunt and to nest in
Red-tailed hawks frequently have to cope with mobbing by crows.
Red-tailed hawks engaging in an inflight battle over prey, painted by John James Audubon
Juvenile eating an eastern gray squirrel.
Formidable feet and talons of a red-tailed hawk.
The typical hunting method of red-tailed hawks is to dive down on its prey from a lofty perch.
Voles are often caught by red-tails, especially immature hawks such as this may depend almost fully upon them.
A red-tailed Hawk eating a Uinta ground squirrel.
A juvenile after it ate its mountain cottontail prey.
A red-tailed hawk feeding on its prey, a young cat.
A hawk eats a rock pigeon, near Toronto harbour
A red-tailed hawk with avian prey.
A red-tailed hawk feeding off with its kill, a large colubrid snake
A red-tailed hawk attempts unsuccessfully to pirate a fish from an osprey.
A red-shouldered hawk flies in to harass a red-tailed hawk, which often outcompetes and is occasionally dangerous to smaller raptors.
A white-tailed kite mobbing a red-tailed hawk.
A red-tailed hawk is mobbed by a northern mockingbird in the urban environment of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Red-tailed Hawk with moon over Estero Bay CA
At the end of an aggressive flight
The cloaca of a red-tailed hawk, where excretion of biological waste and reproduction takes place
Territorial adult chasing away an immature red-tailed hawk
Red-tailed hawks build large but untidy looking nests
Parent in nest with chicks
A red-tailed hawk chick peers out of its cliff nest
A recent fledgling on the ground, probably making its early hunting attempts.
A hawk at the Canadian Raptor Conservancy in Ontario, Canada
A trained red-tailed hawk working with a volunteer from the Ojai Raptor Center
A falconer's red-tailed hawk comes in for a landing

Red-tailed hawk facts for kids

Images for kids

See also