How Do Red-Tailed Hawks Work?

This large, loud hawk is probably North America's most common because it's so adaptable. Learn more about red-tailed hawks in today's episode of BrainStuff, based on this article: https://animals.howstuffworks.com/birds/red-tailed-hawk.htm

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey, brain Stuff,
Lauren Boglebaum here, surely you've seen a majestic bald eagle
sweep across a television or movie screen while it makes
its familiar call, a harsh, keening scream. Super producer Tyler,

(00:22):
can we get that bird call? If you've heard this,
it wasn't an eagle at all, but rather the piercing
shrill of a red tailed hawk. Because the smaller and
more prevalent redtailed hawk has a much mightier voice than
its larger cousin, the bald eagle. Hollywood regularly dubs over

(00:44):
the call of the bald eagle with that of the
red tailed hawk to toughen up the symbol of America.
The bald eagle actually boasts a little cackling type of call.
That's not very impressive. Do we have one of those
in the library? Yet another reason I agree with Ben
Franklin who thought the turkey would have been a better

(01:06):
choice for National bird, But today we're talking hawks. There
are more than two hundred species around the world, and
around twenty five that make their homes in the United States,
but the red tailed hawk is probably the most common
species in North America. These big birds can be spotted
soaring above rural regions from coast to coast and perching

(01:30):
anywhere with scattered elevated seeding from which to watch open areas.
They were first taxonomically described in Jamaica, which is how
the red tailed hawk got its species name, Beauteo jamakensis.
They are also known as chickenhawks and buzzard hawks. Although
they avoid tundra and thick forest, they are more adaptable

(01:52):
than any other hawk in the Beauteo genus. Their varied
habitats include scrub desert plains, grasslands, agricultural fields, pastures, parks, woodlands,
tropical rainforests, suburbs, and cities. Red tailed hawks have red tails,
which might sound pretty obvious, but it actually takes an

(02:13):
entire year for the birds to develop their namesake tail.
A chicks hatch with a sort of sleety gray colored fluff,
and juveniles develop increasingly dark, spotted, white, and brown coloration
over the course of several months. About a year after
they hatch, they'll molt their brown tail and grow their
mature copper to brick colored tail feathers. The male and

(02:37):
female birds don't have noticeably different coloration. All red tailed
hawks have yellow legs and feet, with long, sharp claws,
and a bit of yellow at their sear, which is
the fleshy upper base of their short hooked beak, which
is itself gray in color. Other than that, their exact
coloration can vary by region and subspecies, of which there

(02:58):
are about fifteen. Eastern birds have a brown head and back,
a white throat and chest, and a band of brown
streaks that run lengthwise down the belly. Western birds tend
to have streakier bellies. A Great Plains variety called Crider's
hawk is pale with a whitish colored head and washed

(03:19):
out pink in the tail. South Texas forms are darker
above but without the dark belly band below. Dark morph
birds can occur anywhere, but are more common in western
North America, particularly up in Alaska and northwest Canada, where
the all dark Harlan's hawk is common. These birds have
a stocky body with broad wings, and they often fan

(03:42):
out their tail during flight. There is some variation in
size among red tailed hawks subspecies, with the largest birds
occurring in the northern populations and the smallest in the south.
They can grow to about twenty two inches in length
from beak to tail, that's fifty five centimeters, with a
wingspan of around fifty fifty two inches, that's one hundred
and thirty centimeters. That's almost four and a half feet.

(04:05):
That's a lot of bird. The female birds tend to
be a bit bigger than the males. During ordinary flight,
red tailed hawks are a little slower than ducks or geese.
They fly around the normal speed of neighborhood traffic, maybe
up to like forty miles an hour or sixty five
kilometers an hour, but when they go into a dive,

(04:25):
they accelerate like a highly tuned race car. A red
tailed hawk can spot prey from a distance of some
hundred feet or thirty meters up, and can swoop down
at speeds of over one hundred and twenty miles an
hour or nearly two hundred kilometers an hour. For the article,
this episode is based on how Stuff Works, spoke via
email with Rick Schwartz, a global ambassador for California's San

(04:48):
Diego Zoo. He explained they can see colors like most
humans can, as well as those in the ultra violet range.
This means that hawks can perceive colors that humans cannot see.
Red tailed hawks are diurnal hunters, but see black and
white well enough to also hunt at dusk, the time
when nocturnal animals, especially rodents, begin to awaken and move around.

(05:12):
These predators have a nictating membrane, a clear inner lid
that cleans the eye and protects it while the hawk
is wrestling with its prey. Red tailed hawks will eat
carrion when times are tough, but they prefer live prey
and especially the aforementioned rodents like mice, voles, rabbits, and squirrels,
with the occasional snake, lizard, and small bird thrown in

(05:35):
for good measure. How stuffworks also spoke via email with
Scott Barnes, now the bird's programs director at the New
Jersey Audubond Society. He explained they hover hunt by flapping
in place over potential prey and by swooping down to
grab a meal with their sharp talons. Or they perch hunt,
which is exactly what it sounds a sitting on a perch,

(05:58):
sometimes a telephone pole and watching for prey. A Once
an item is spotted, the hawk drops off its perch
and tries to grab a meal. They are clever hunters.
Some birds have been observed faking out venomous snakes by
flaring their wings out, encouraging the snake to strike harmlessly
at their feathers, then going in for the kill. On

(06:20):
the flip side of the food chain. Adult red tailed
hawks can be preyed upon by larger raptors like eagles,
or sometimes by mammals like bobcats, but most predators find
them too big to want to mess with. However, the
hawk's first year of life is perilous, Schwartz said. Great
horned owls and crows prey on red tailed hawk eggs

(06:42):
and nestlings. Owls compete with red tailed hawks for nest sites.
Both birds are known to kill the young and destroy
the eggs of the other in an attempt at taking
a nest site. If they make it through their youth,
red tailed hawks can live about twenty years in the wild.
The oldest known is thought to have been at least
thirty years old when it was found in twenty eleven

(07:03):
in Michigan, the same state where it had been banded
in nineteen eighty one. Some red tilled hawks haunt the
same areas year round, but others migrate with the seasons,
seeking warmer weather and more abundant prey, they might go
alone or move with family groups. Red tails pair up
for life, and their aerial courtship is a daring air

(07:25):
show of flight bravado as the birds lock talons and
spiral downward together. Schwartz said the more migratory red tailed
hawks of the North have dramatic displays, while the more
sedentary birds of the South don't seem to work as
hard to impress their mates. Although red tiled hawks mate
for life, it doesn't mean a surviving partner won't go

(07:46):
on to mate again, even returning the next season to
the breeding territory it knows best, and during the spring,
which is breeding season, a pair will build a bulky
nest high above the ground. A female will lay two
to four eggs and incubate them for about a month.
The male helps feed her during this time, and both
parents may feed the young when they hatch. The young

(08:08):
stay in the nest for another month and a half
before starting to range out on their own, though they
may stay with their family for half a year, and
young birds don't tend to start a family of their
own until their second spring. Red tailed hawks are protected
under the US Migratory Bird Act, and because they're beneficial
for rodent and grasshopper control, they're considered wild friends to farmers.

(08:31):
It is illegal to mess with them or their nests.
Should you ever come across an injured hawk or other
bird of prey, get in touch with a locally licensed
wildlife rehabilitator. They'll know what to do to help the
bird out and get it back where it belongs in nature.

(08:51):
Today's episode is based on the article redtail talks are
way bigger, faster, and more common than you realize on
HowStuffWorks dot Com, written by Wendy Bowman. Brain Stuff is
production of iHeartRadio in partnership with HowStuffWorks dot Com. It
is produced by Tyler Klang. Four more podcasts from iHeartRadio
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen

(09:11):
to your favorite shows.