20 Facts About Red-tailed hawk

Red-tailed hawk is a bird of prey that breeds throughout most of North America, from the interior of Alaska and northern Canada to as far south as Panama and the West Indies.

The red-tailed hawk is one of three species colloquially known in the United States as the "chickenhawk", though it rarely preys on standard-sized chickens.

The red-tailed hawk occupies a wide range of habitats and altitudes, including deserts, grasslands, coniferous and deciduous forests, agricultural fields, and urban areas.

Red-tailed hawk was formally described in 1788 by German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin under the binomial name Falco jamaicensis.

The red-tailed hawk is placed in the genus Buteo that was erected by French naturalist Bernard Germain de Lacepede in 1799.

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Red-tailed hawk is a member of the subfamily Buteoninae, which includes about 55 currently recognized species.

The red-tailed hawk is a member of the genus Buteo, a group of medium-sized raptors with robust bodies and broad wings.

The cere, the legs, and the feet of the red-tailed hawk are all yellow, as is the color of bare parts in many accipitrids of different lineages.

The red-tailed hawk is the only North American hawk with a rufous tail and a blackish patagium marking on the leading edge of its wing .

Fierce, screaming cry of the adult red-tailed hawk is frequently used as a generic raptor sound effect in television shows and other media, even if the bird featured is not a red-tailed hawk.

Red-tailed hawk is one of the most widely distributed of all raptors in the Americas.

Red-tailed hawk is highly conspicuous to humans in much of its daily behavior.

One red-tailed hawk was seen to try to grab a young ground squirrel and, upon missing it, screamed loudly, which in turn caused another young squirrel to break into a run, wherein it was captured.

At times, the red-tailed hawk is thought of as a semi-specialized vole-catcher, but voles are a subsistence food that are more or less are taken until larger prey such as rabbits and squirrels can be captured.

In one instance, a red-tailed hawk was observed to kill a small but seemingly healthy lamb.

In North America, fewer lizards are typically recorded in the foods of red-tailed hawk than are snakes, probably because snakes are considerably better adapted to cooler, seasonal weather, with an extensive diversity of lizards found only in the southernmost reaches of the contiguous United States.

Usually, habitat preferences kept conflicts to a minimum, with the red-tailed hawk favoring taller, more isolated saguaro cactus for nesting, whereas the other species outnumbered red-tails in areas that were denser and more shrubby.

In one case, a red-tailed hawk was observed to kill a bald eagle chick, whether this was predatory or competitive, it quickly abandoned the dead nestling after the eagle's parents returned.

Red-tailed hawk is a popular bird in falconry, particularly in the United States where the sport of falconry is tightly regulated; this type of hawk is widely available and is frequently assigned to apprentice falconers.

Feathers and other parts of the red-tailed hawk are considered sacred to many indigenous people and, like the feathers of the bald eagle and golden eagle, are sometimes used in religious ceremonies and found adorning the regalia of many Native Americans in the United States; these parts, most especially their distinctive tail feathers, are a popular item in the Native American community.