Kites, Hawks, Eagles, etc. 



Red-tailed Hawk 



(Buteo borealis) 



Called also: HEN HAWK; CHICKEN .HAWK; RED-TAILED 

 BUZZARD; RED HAWK 



Length — Male 20 inches ; female 2 5 inches. 



Male and Female — Upper parts dark grayish brown; the feathers 

 edged with rufous, white, gray, and tawny ; the wing cov- 

 erts lack the rufous shade ; tail rusty red, tipped with 

 white and with a narrow black band near its end, but 

 silvery gray on the under side. Under parts buff or whit- 

 ish, with heaviest brown or blackish markings on the flanks 

 and underneath, often forming an imperfect band across the 

 lower breast. Immature birds lack the red tail, their tails 

 being grayish, or like the back, with numerous black bars. 



Range — Eastern United States, west to the great plains; nesting 

 throughout its range. 



Season — Permanent resident ; partly migratory. 



With a wing spread of four feet, the red-tailed hawk, no less 

 than the red-shouldered species, is a conspicuous object in the 

 sky, especially in August and September, when all hawks 

 appear to be less hungry and vicious than usual, and constantly 

 and serenely sailing and gyrating high overhead, beyond 

 thought of mundane concerns. Lacking the dash and address of 

 Cooper's hawk, this far larger, heavier buzzard is rather leis- 

 urely, not to say slow, of movement. Mounting higher and 

 higher in a spiral till it appears a mere speck in the blue, it will 

 sail and float, ascending, descending, in long undulations, then, 

 when rising and circling, with no perceptible vibration of its 

 wings, it will suddenly lift them to a point above the back and 

 shoot earthward like a meteor. Catching itself just as you 

 believe it must certainly dash itself to pieces, again it rises, with 

 bounds, on broad wings to enjoy the stratum of cooler air, high 

 above the tree tops, all these hardy birds delight in. One hawk 

 was watched in the air, without once alighting, from seven in 

 the morning till four in the afternoon. 



When not in the act of sailing, the most likely position to 

 find this majestic air king in is perched on a tree at the edge of a 



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