"Singing" Red-tailed Hawk

I doubt most of you would consider this Red-tailed Hawk to be singing [1] if you heard it, though for all I know it could have been the hawk equivalent of a love song advertising their availability for courtship. Or maybe it's a defiant warning to other hawks that this territory is taken. The warning call may be more likely since I'm not sure Red-tails are looking for mates in September. 

For most of our hawks and eagles, the females are larger than the males. It's not completely clear why that's the case. One theory is that since the males and females are different sizes, they may each be a little better at hunting certain types of prey; the larger female might be better able to handle a fully grown skunk while the smaller and more agile male might be able to catch an incautious starling. So why wouldn't the male be larger? Maybe because the female spends more time incubating the eggs, and her larger size covers the eggs better [2].

September 22, 2022 at Duke Farms
Photo 248784999, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)

Though it may seem like the hawk's doing nothing but resting up in the tree, they're pretty vigilant looking for a meal. Sometimes you'll see them suddenly focus intensely on a potential next meal.

September 22, 2022 at Duke Farms
Photo 248784968, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)

[1] Most of us would probably recognize the call as the "screaming eagle" in the typical movie. Our eagles tend to make a high-pitched wimpier sound, and so most movies showing eagles dub in the vocalizations of Red-tailed Hawks.

[2] It sounds like there's not much proof of these hypotheses, and they're probably just educated guesses on the part of ornithologists.

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