Red-tailed Hawk

Buteo jamaicensis (Gmelin, JF, 1788)

Red-tailed Hawk, Buteo jamaicensis, breeds widely across North America and Middle America. It is a familiar hawk of open country, forests, farmland and towns, and it also ranges into deserts and grasslands. It is absent from continuous forest and the high Arctic. Its most obvious feature is the tail that gives the bird its name, with a brick-red upper surface and a pale orange-buff underside. In the United States it is one of the birds called a chickenhawk. It is a stocky member of the hawk family and has 14 recognised subspecies.

Order

Accipitriformes

Family

Accipitridae — Kites, Hawks, Eagles

Breeding range

North America, Middle America: widespread