North American Red-Tailed Hawk Habitats: Brown Body, Nest Pile, White Egg

Summary: White eggs in nest piles give North American red-tail hawk habitats brown bodies seasonally in Canada and Mexico, year-round in the United States.

North American red-tailed hawk (Buteo jamaicensis) at John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge, Philadelphia, southeastern Pennsylvania; January 2011: Mark Bohn/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Public Domain, via USFWS National Digital Library

North American red-tailed hawk habitats allay cultivator anxieties with Accipitridae raptor family member appetites for field animals and hunters and naturalists with distribution ranges from Canada southward through Mexico and the Caribbean.

Red-shouldered hawks bear their common name and the scientific name Buteo jamaicensis (Jamaican buzzard) for colorfully mature tails and the location of the first European-described specimens. Predatory humans and secondary poisoning from consuming lead- or warfarin-containing animals challenge red-tailed hawks, described in 1788 by Johann Friedrich Gmelin (Aug. 8, 1748-Nov. 1, 1804). Bio-geography and physique divide them into continental alascensis, borealis, calurus, costaricensis, fuertesi, hadropus, harlani, kemsiesi, kriderii and umbrinus and insular fumosus, nominate, socorroensis and solitudinus subspecies.

Twenty-one-year lifespans expect nest-friendly, perch-worthy buildings, cacti, cliffs, outcrops, poles, snags or trees in bottomlands, clearings, estuaries, fields, grasslands, marshes, meadows, parklands, prairies, rangelands or savannas.

February through September facilitate brooding one two- to five-egg clutch in nest piles in buildings, shrubs, snags, towers or trees or on cacti, cliffs and outcrops.

Monogamous parents-to-be gather twigs into bark-, stem-lined, 4- to 6-inch- (10.16- to 15.24-centimeter-) deep, permanent nest piles 35 to 90 feet (10.67 to 27.43 meters) up. Nests with inner 14- to 15-inch (35.56- to 38.1-centimeter), outer 28- to 38-inch (71.12- to 96.52-centimeter) diameters house buff-washed, elliptical to subelliptical, non-glossy, smooth white eggs. Parents-to-be incubate brown-, buff-, red-brown-, purple-blotched, speckled, 2.16- to 2.67-inch (55- to 68-millimeter) by 1.69- to 1.97-inch (43- to 50-millimeter) eggs for 28 to 35 days.

Bald eagles, bobcats, coyotes, crows, golden eagles, great horned owls, prairie dogs and skunks and drivers, feather-collectors, hunters and researchers jeopardize North American red-tailed hawk habitats.

Semi-helpless nestlings, active as two-day-old hatchlings, know a first, buff- or gray-white, long, silky down, a second, short, white, woolly down and, as 16-day-olds, first feathers. They learn food-pecking within one week, self-feeding and then finding separate nests within four to five weeks, flying within six weeks and foraging within seven weeks.

Red-tailed hawks, sexually mature as three-year-olds, mark as prey blackbirds, crows, grouse, gulls, nutcrackers, orioles, owls, pheasants, pigeons, thrashers, vireos and warblers and crabs and spiders. They also need chipmunks, cottontails, geckos, jackrabbits, lemmings, lizards, mice, moles, pikas, pocket gophers, prairie dogs, raccoons, rats, shrews, skunks, snakes, squirrels, toads, voles and woodchucks.

North American red-tailed hawks up to 10,498.69 feet (3,200 meters) above sea level offer winter's coldest temperatures at minus 10 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 23.33 degrees Celsius).

Alder, ash, aspen, beech, birch, cottonwood, cypress, elm, fir, gum, hemlock, hickory, juniper, larch, maple, oak, pine, red-cedar, redwood, spruce and sycamore protect red-tail life cycles.

Brown upperparts, brown-spotted and streaked white underparts, semi-banded gray-brown tails and yellow eyes qualify as juvenile hallmarks before the two-year-olds' richly browning plumage and reddening tails. Brown eyes and upperparts, dark-banded pale underparts, dark-barred wing undersides, rusty tails and yellow ceres, feet and legs reveal broad-, round-winged large-sized females and small-sized males. Circular soaring, slow-flapped flight on 44.88 to 52.36-inch (114- to 133-centimeter) wingspans suggests 17.71- to 25.59-inch (45- to 65-centimeter), 24.34- to 51.49-ounce (690- to 1,460-gram) adults.

North American red-tailed hawk habitats transmit hoarse, screaming kee-eee-arr calls by soaring adults, low, soft peeps by hungry youngsters and shrill chwirk vocalizations by courting adults.

illustration of eggs of red-tailed hawk subspecies of Buteo borealis; Illustrations of the Nests and Eggs of Birds of Ohio, Plate XLIV, figure 4, opp. page 170: Public Domain, via Biodiversity Heritage Library

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

North American red-tailed hawk (Buteo jamaicensis) at John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge, Philadelphia, southeastern Pennsylvania; January 2011: Mark Bohn/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Public Domain, via USFWS National Digital Library @ https://digitalmedia.fws.gov/cdm/singleitem/collection/natdiglib/id/11638/rec/1

illustration of eggs of red-tailed hawk subspecies of Buteo borealis; Illustrations of the Nests and Eggs of Birds of Ohio, Plate XLIV, figure 4, opp. page 170: Public Domain, via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/34908293

For further information:

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Available via Cincinnati Digital Library - The Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County @ http://digital.cincinnatilibrary.org/digital/collection/p16998coll33/id/52/rec/53

Audubon, John James. 1840. "Harlan's Buzzard Buteo harlani, Aud." The Birds of America, From Drawings Made in the United States and Their Territories, vol. I: 38-40. New York NY: J.J. Audubon; Philadelphia PA: J.B. Chevalier.
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/40382988

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Gmelin, Johann Friedrich. 1788. "74. Falco jamaicensis." Caroli a Linné Systema Naturae, tom. I, pars I: 266. Editio Decima Tertia, Aucta, Reformata. Lipsaie [Leipzig]: Impensis Georg Emanuel Beer.
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/2896866

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Available @ http://www.zoonomen.net/avtax/acci.html

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Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/13183479

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Available via University of Michigan Deep Blue Data Repository @ https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/56760/OP321.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y