Red-tailed Hawk. 
(. Buteo borealis.) 
BY GEO. P. ELLIOTT, MERCER, PA. 
This species is comparatively common in this 
locality, being the detested Hen Hawk, of the 
farmers and hunters. It is taken, with great diffi- 
culty as it is excedingly shy and hard to ap- 
proach. It is almost impossible to get within 
gun-shot of it unless the hunter is on horseback 
or in a sleigh or wagon. 
In the far west, however, this is quite contrary, 
and H. W. Hensliaw, of Washington, D. C., one 
of our most reliable ornithological authorities, in 
his “Ornithological Notes,” says: 
“At Mount Graham, in October, these hawks 
were present in large numbers, and tamer than I 
have ever known hawks to be elsewhere. Walk- 
ing quietly along, there was no difficulty in ap- 
proaching within a few yards of the tree where 
one chanced to perch. One individual which I 
scared from its perch by throwing a stone, took a 
few wide circles about me, as though wondering 
what it meant, and quietly returned to its former 
stand.’ 
“Red-tailed hawks in their fall migration are 
gregarious. One clear, cold autumn afternoon 
in 1876, I saw, near West Chester, Pa., a flock of 
these hawks. The sky was destitute of clouds 
except a cumulus stratum directly beneath, and 
apparently about half way between the hawks 
and the earth. In the center of this vapor there 
was an opening of sufficient size to enable me to 
watch the gyrations of the birds; two of them 
suddenly separated from the main body and ap- 
proached each other, screaming and apparently 
in great rage. They descended screaming, and, 
to all appearances clinched, to within about about 
one hundred yards of the earth, -when they parted. 
Evidently neither bird had received much injury, 
as they both, after taking short flights across the 
meadows, ascended in company with two or three 
of their companions that had accompanied them 
part way down, to the main body. This party 
of hawks, after performing for nearly twenty 
minutes, these, and numerous other aerial antics, 
continued their southern flight. Combats in mid- 
air are quite common among red-tailed hawks.” 
I take the above notes from an article on the 
“Diurnal Rapacious Birds,” of Chester County, 
Pa., furnished to the Pennsylvania Agricultural 
Board by Mr. B. II. Warren, of West Chester, Pa. 
Though the bulk of the birds of this species 
pass south at the approach of winter, a few indi- 
viduals remain with us throughout the entire sea- 
son. These hawks generally hunt in pairs, prey- 
ing upon rabbits, quail, snakes, frogs, squirrels, 
mice, moles, and sometimes skunks. An acquaint- 
ance of mine, whom I shall call II., having set a 
trap to catch a skunk which had been committing 
depredations among his poultry, was lucky enough 
to capture the thief, in a piece of woods not far 
from the house of the captor. Having killed and 
skinned the skunk, (a most delightful task,) H., 
left the body where it was, and returned home. 
The next morning, while passing the spot where 
the skunk lay, he flushed two large Red-tails 
from the carcass, which they had partially de- 
voured. Returning home, H., procured two 
strong, double-spring steel traps and set them, 
one on each side of the dead skunk. The next 
morning on visiting the traps, he found that he 
had caught both hawks. They were the finest 
specimens of the species I have ever seen, — a male 
and a female, both adults and unusually large. 
The female was four feet and four inches in ex- 
panse, and twenty-four inches in length, the male 
being two inches smaller each way. The bodies 
were completely covered by thick layers of fat. 
I have heard of the Red-tailed Hawk killing 
and eating the common ground-hog, but as I 
have no positive proof of this, I cannot add it to 
the list of animals included in their bill of fare. 
Squirrels form quite an item in the food of the 
Red-tail. When two of the birds are hunting 
together, as is frequently the case, the usual mode 
of capture is that one of the hawks will drive the 
squirrel around the tree while the other bird 
poises to sieze it as it dodges around to avoid the 
first hawk. 
The bulk of these hawks arrive from the south 
about the first of March. Nest building generally 
begins in this locality, about the fifteenth of the 
month and continues from ten to fifteen days. 
The nest is constructed of coarse sticks, lined 
with the inner bark of the birch, oak, or chestnut 
trees, and is invariably placed in high trees. 
The eggs are generally two in number, sometimes 
three, and more rarely four. They are laid from 
the twenty-fifth of March to the middle of April, 
and sometimes later. A set of two handsome 
eggs is before me. They were collected on the 
seventeenth of April, 1885, near Lake City, Minn. 
The nest was forty-five feet up in a birch tree, 
and was composed of heavy slicks, lined with 
grass and birch bark. The eggs are very differ- 
ent in markings and shape. No. 1 is, in shape, a 
rounded oval, bluish-white ground color, marked 
with large reddish-brown blotches over the entire 
surface; measures 2.50x1.95 inches. No. 2 is of 
the same ground color as No. 1, but is oval in 
shape, and is thickly marked at the lesser end 
with dashes of pale yellowish-brown. These 
markings are placed lengthwise on the egg, and 
though thickest at the smallest end extend more 
or less over the entire surface. Measures 2.55x 
1.90 inches. They are unusually large. 
“Gentry tells us: ‘The eggs vary in size, even 
in the same nest. The largest measures 2.52x1.88 
inches, and the smallest 2.10x1.72.’” (Warren.) 
No hawk eggs present greater variation in point 
of markings and ground color, “even in the same 
nest. Some are of a uniform dull white, without 
markings of any description; others are faintly 
marked with drab, but the usual marking seems 
to be of different shades of brown and umber. 
This species, never plentiful, is becoming less so 
every year.” Great numbers of Raptores, many of 
them beneficial (the Sparrow Hawk and Screech 
Owl,) are killed every year by hunters and farm- 
ers. But in this region the Red-tailed Hawk 
seems to have more than its share of the hatred 
and persecution of the farmers, which, in the 
writer’s estimation should be turned against the 
Cooper’s and Sharp-sliinncd Hawks. 
O.&O. XI. Mar. 1886. p. 3H' 3i ' 
