A worldwide community photographing and learning about wildlife
Buteo jamaicensis
This is probably the most common hawk in North America. If you’ve got sharp eyes you’ll see several individuals on almost any long car ride, anywhere. Red-tailed Hawks soar above open fields, slowly turning circles on their broad, rounded wings. Other times you’ll see them atop telephone poles, eyes fixed on the ground to catch the movements of a vole or a rabbit, or simply waiting out cold weather before climbing a thermal updraft into the sky.
The Red-tailed Hawk is a bird of open country. Look for it along fields and perched on telephones poles, fenceposts, or trees standing alone or along edges of fields.
There is a pair of red-tailed hawks that have been nesting right behind the California Academy of Sciences yearly, and the lighting was difficult, but I think this is one of the juveniles. They frequently hunt gophers in a large grass area near the baseball fields behind the building.
No Comments