Red-tailed Hawk Sternly Scanning the Area

This Red-tailed Hawk was intensely surveying its surroundings last spring. They do spend a fair amount of time staring off into the distance (like this hawk and this hawk), presumably because:

  1. Their ability to see things at a distance is quite a bit better than ours.
  2. You never know when you're going to spot your next breakfast/lunch/dinner out there.

Though the red (actually orange) tail isn't really in evidence with this particular Red-tail, it does have a very prominent "belly band", the dark speckles going across the belly of the hawk. In this area, that belly band is probably a somewhat better field mark for identifying Red-tails than a red/orange tail. 

I do end up showing Red-tailed Hawks quite a bit; fortunately for you guys, they are fairly photogenic birds.

June 5, 2023 at Duke Farms
Photo 300862081, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)


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