Red-tailed Hawk: North America’s Most Common Hawk

The Red-tailed Hawk (Buteo jamaicensis) is the most common and most widely seen hawk in North America. If you have ever noticed a large hawk perched on a roadside pole or circling over a field, the odds are good it was a red-tailed. It is a big, broad-winged buteo — a soaring hunter of open country — and it is the bird whose scream has been used, wrongly, as the voice of eagles in countless films. Familiarity has bred a little contempt; the red-tailed is anything but ordinary once you look closely at its plumage, its hunting, and its remarkable success in cities.

North America’s Most Common Hawk

Red-tailed Hawks are large and heavy-bodied, with broad, rounded wings and a short, wide tail. They soar with wings held in a shallow dihedral and, seen from below, show a classic buteo shape that immediately distinguishes them from the pointed-winged falcons and the short-winged, long-tailed accipiters. Size varies a lot with latitude and sex:

Females average larger than males, as in most raptors. The bird’s range runs from Alaska and northern Canada through the United States, Mexico, and Central America to Panama and the Caribbean, with many described subspecies occupying different regions and habitats. For a tour of the continent’s other buteos and accipiters, see hawks of North America.

The Red Tail and the Many Plumages

The name points to the adult’s most famous feature: a tail of warm rufous red, seen best from above or when the bird fans it. But the red tail is not as reliable a field mark as beginners expect. Juveniles have a brownish, banded tail and only moult into the red adult tail in their second year, and several subspecies never show a fully red tail at all.

Red-tailed Hawk plumage is famously variable, reflecting the species’ huge range and the number of recognised subspecies. The main variants include:

• Eastern (borealis): the classic bird — brown above, pale below with a dark “belly band,” and a red tail.
• Western (calurus): highly variable, with light, dark, and rufous (reddish) morphs; darker birds are common in the west.
• Harlan’s Hawk: a dark northern form of Alaska and northwest Canada, with a mottled or dark tail rather than a red one, and heavily barred underparts.
• Krider’s Hawk: a pale plains form with a whitish head and a pale, faintly marked tail that can look almost white.

Most red-tailed Hawks also show a distinctive belly band — a band of dark streaking across the lower breast. On a soaring bird seen from below, the dark leading edges of the inner wings (the patagial marks) form another useful clue. Sorting out plumage variation is a skill in itself; our guide to identifying birds of prey sets out the method.

The Scream: The Voice Hollywood Borrowed

A perched or soaring Red-tailed Hawk will often give a hoarse, descending scream — a drawn-out “kree-eee-ar” that trails away at the end. It is a powerful, arresting sound, and it is the reason film and television almost always use a red-tailed Hawk when they want the call of a Bald Eagle. The Bald Eagle’s actual voice is a weak, chattering series of whistles — nothing like the fierce scream audiences expect. The red-tailed Hawk is, in effect, the voice of the American eagle in popular culture.

Habitat, Range, and Urban Nesting

The species thrives in open country with perches: farmland, grassland, desert, roadsides, and mountain meadows, usually with scattered trees or poles for sitting and hunting from. It is a habitat generalist, which is why it is so widespread. Its requirement is simply open ground to hunt over and a high place to nest or scan from.

That flexibility extends to cities. Red-tailed Hawks nest on buildings, stadium lights, billboards, and skyscrapers, and several urban pairs have become famous — most notably the “Pale Male” Red-tailed Hawk, whose long residence on a Manhattan co-operative building made him a New York celebrity. Urban pairs typically feed on pigeons, rats, and squirrels and can be surprisingly successful.

Diet and Hunting

The red-tailed Hawk is a generalist predator with a strong preference for small mammals. Its diet includes voles, mice, ground squirrels, rats, rabbits, and pocket gophers, along with birds, snakes, frogs, and insects; it will also take carrion. Despite the old nickname “chickenhawk,” poultry is a very small part of its diet — the name is a misnomer and one that has historically caused the species unnecessary persecution.

Its hunting style suits open ground. It typically hunts from a perch — a pole, fence post, or bare branch — dropping onto prey it spots below, or it soars and quarters low over fields before gliding down for the kill. It takes most prey on the ground rather than in the air, which is a fundamental difference between a buteo like this and a true aerial hunter such as a falcon; the distinction is explored in the difference between eagles and hawks.

Breeding and Conservation

• Nests are large stick platforms, built in tall trees, on cliffs, or on buildings and other structures; pairs often reuse and enlarge a nest over several seasons.
• Clutch: usually two to three eggs, sometimes one to five.
• Incubation: about 28–35 days.
• Fledging: around 42–48 days, with young birds remaining dependent for weeks afterwards.
• Site fidelity: adults are strongly territorial and often return to the same nesting territory year after year.

Globally the Red-tailed Hawk is secure and assessed as Least Concern; it may even have benefited from the patchwork of open country created by farming and roads. Its main modern hazards are vehicle collisions, electrocution on power lines, and shooting, none of which currently threatens the population as a whole. For proof that common raptors can still surprise a careful observer, it is worth learning to identify one in the air with confidence: see identifying raptors in flight.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I know it is a Red-tailed Hawk?

Look for a large, broad-winged hawk with a short, wide tail and a pale underside with a dark belly band. If it is an adult and you can see the upper side of the tail, the warm rufous colour is conclusive. Juveniles have a banded brown tail and are trickier.

Do all Red-tailed Hawks have red tails?

No. Juveniles have brown banded tails and only acquire the red tail after about a year, and forms such as Harlan’s Hawk and the pale Krider’s Hawk can have dark, mottled, or nearly white tails rather than a classic red one.

Why do Bald Eagles “sound like” Red-tailed Hawks on television?

Because film and television usually dub a Red-tailed Hawk’s scream over footage of an eagle. The eagle’s real voice is a series of weak whistles, far less dramatic than the hawk’s descending cry.

Are Red-tailed Hawks dangerous to pets?

Large red-tailed Hawks can take very small pets such as free-ranging kittens or small poultry, but they are not a serious threat to cats and dogs of normal size and pose no danger to people. Attacks on humans are essentially unknown.

Where do Red-tailed Hawks nest?

In tall trees, on cliffs, and increasingly on human structures such as buildings, communications towers, stadium lights, and billboards. They build large stick nests and often reuse the same site for years.

Is the Red-tailed Hawk common?

Yes — it is the most commonly seen large hawk in North America, and its population is stable or increasing. It is listed as Least Concern both globally and across most of its range.

Learn to tell it from the woodland hunters in the Cooper’s Hawk and the Sharp-shinned Hawk, or start with the family overview in hawks of North America.