| The red-tailed hawk is not only the largest of our resident hawks but is also the most conspicuous, hence one of our best known birds of prey. Red-tails are characterized by long broad wings and short fan tails. They spend considerable time soaring high overhead on updrafts and thermals which bear them up and out of sight. Adults are easily identified but the immature birds do not acquire the rufous tail coloration until their second year.
Red-tails were remarkably common in the rural agricultural areas as recently as twenty five years ago. Farming practices of that era were very compatible with the needs of both predators and prey, but the days of soil banking, crop rotation and brushy fence rows are gone. The recent practice of fall plowing is alone, totally devastating to wildlife populations, not to mention accelerated loss of our topsoil. And the red-tails.
The role of the red-tail, like all predators, is to help maintain healthy populations of its prey, which brings objections from some people. In fact, it serves a very useful purpose; slower and less fit individuals are weeded out, crippled animals never languish long. It is nature's way of controlling its population.
Length 19-25 inches
|
