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Today on Animal Fact Files we’re talking about red tailed hawks. Red tailed hawks live throughout North and Central America, and even if you don’t live anywhere near their native range, they’re probably familiar to you - we’ll explain why in just a bit. Red tailed hawks are frequently seen sitting atop a prominent tree within their ranges, but they’ll also happily utilize man-made perches like fence poses and telephone poles. They may also be seen soaring high above the ground in circling patterns. While perching or soaring, these birds are in search of their next meals. Red tailed hawks eat small mammals such as voles, prairie dogs, and rabbits but they’ve also been observed eating snakes, other birds, and carrion. Heck there’s even an account of a red tailed hawk picking up a domestic cat. The cat wriggled free, however, and survived. Lucky cat. Cats and red tailed hawks may come into contact because these birds have been able to adjust to living alongside humans. Red tailed hawks live in nearly any environment, though they aren’t found in tundra regions or in dense forests.

These birds of prey come in a wide range of patterns and colors which can make them a challenge to identify. One of the only guaranteed ways to tell if a hawk-like bird is in fact a red tailed hawk is to check out the leading edges of its wings in flight. Red tailed hawks have dark patches in this area. And it might seem like an obvious mark to look for in red tailed hawks would be a, well, red tail - but juvenile red tailed hawks don’t have red tails! Juvenile red tailed hawks have banded tails that may stay this way for up to two years before they grow the adult red colored feathers - so it’s not a dependable field mark, though, let’s be honest, it can definitely help. Some other signs to look for are bare yellow feet and legs, a curved and pointed beak that turns yellow at the base. The beak should look like it fits the hawk’s face, unlike eagle beaks which be chonkin’. Red tailed hawks also tend to have little white U or V shapes on the edges of the feathers which can be seen while the wings are folded up and the bird is perched.

Even if you’ve never seen one of these beauties, we can almost guarantee you’ve heard one. Probably the easiest way to tell there’s a red tailed hawk in the area is to listen for its call. Does this sound familiar? We’d be surprised if you haven’t heard that or something similar because that’s the sound filmmakers use as sound clips for raptors in film, regardless of the species.

Female red-tailed hawks are usually larger than males though on average these birds weigh just over two pounds (907 grams). They have wingspans of over four feet (1.2 meters). Those large wings help them to perform some pretty amazing air stuns. During a mating dance, males will dive at a deep angle and then soar back up to catch a female’s attention. If he wins her affections then they may even lock talons and plunge to the earth twirling around each other in a death-defying display. They’ll build a nest high in a tree or reuse the nest that they built the year prior. For the most part, red-tailed hawks are monogamous but they will find a new mate quickly if their previous mate has died. The female does most of the incubation, and there are usually 1-4 eggs. The eggs take about 30 days to incubate and the baby hawks will leave the nest after about 45 days, though they’ll remain in their parents’ territory for at least a month after that. On average red tailed hawks don’t make it to ten years of age, though they’ve been known to reach nearly twenty and captive red-tailed hawks have been documented to make it to thirty.

For more facts on red tailed hawks check out the links in the description. Give a thumbs up if you learned something new today, and thank you for watching Animal Fact Files.