Meet
the Red-Tailed Hawks
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We have two Red-Tailed
Hawks at the zoo. One is named Jack and in June 2010 we
added a female named Jill. They share their home
with the rough-legged hawks at the zoo. You can tell them apart
from the other hawks by their reddish colored tails. Jack
enjoys perching higher in the exhibit and is usually spotted
up on the high perches. Jill has more brown coloring on
her head and neck.
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Red-tailed hawks are a large hawk common
to most of the United States. Red-tails have
about a 4-foot wingspan and weigh between two and three
pounds. Red-tailed
hawks are “generalist” feeders.
This means that they will eat almost anything they can
catch. They will
eat small and medium-sized birds, mammals, and rabbits.
Like most raptor species, red-tailed hawks display
“sexual size dimorphism”.
Sexual size dimorphism means that the female birds are
larger than the males. There
are several different theories as to why female raptors are
bigger than males, but one single reason has yet to be
identified.
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Red-Tailed Hawk Range in North America |
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more information, please visit the Cornell Lab of Ornithology http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/BirdGuide/Red-tailed_Hawk_dtl.html. |
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