Red-Tail's Wood

Red-Tailed Hawks (Buteo Jamaicensis) are among my favorite of raptors. I remember the first time I ever saw a red-tail, on a trip to Irazú Volcano National Park (Costa Rica) in my early birding days. The hawk was gliding around a cliff while we turned and turned around the mountain to get to the park. Its tail flashed red with the morning sun, and even though I didn't say much when I first saw it, I was thrilled at catching sight of it.

In the woods behind my apartment building there is a medium sized patch of woods that extends horizontally to what I think is a large wooded park. The woods has a little, fortunately very clean-looking creek that adds a beautiful touch to the woods. 

Red-tail hawks are a common sight there, something completely thrilling to me. Just today, as my  younger brother and I went out there to fix our brushpile for the birds, a huge red-tail glided through the woods and landed on a tree branch. I brought out my binoculars from my hiking bag (I always bring my bins with me) and looked at the hawk. Geez, are red-tails beautiful! 

No, wait, that last time I mentioned was not the first time I ever saw a red-tail. The real first time I saw one was way back before I began birding, about 5 years ago in Boston, Mass. We were to stay there for a year, because my father had a scholarship and we all went to the U.S. with him. We were heading to the Boston Museum of Science (or at least that's what I remember it was called), and stopped to look at an old cemetery.I was reading the inscripture on a gravestone, and something caught my eye. I glanced up and saw a red-tail hawk nesting in the roof of an old-looking brick building. A guy with a camera took pictures of it, and other people came to look at the parent hawk. I was very young, yet very excited about the sighting.

Red-tails are powerful and large, with a screeching call many of us associate with that of the Bald Eagle, although this is actually a myth. Bald Eagles are mostly silent, and the sound they usually do make is a series of sharp, repetitive cries, which some describe as a "snickering laugh".

Red-tails are powerful, beautiful hawks common through all of North America. They are usually birds of open country, seen perched on telephone poles and high trees. 

-Cristina :)

Photos: Top and bottom images from Cornell Lab of Ornithology.