To be clear, I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between red-tailed hawks and a half dozen similar birds in the state, so I’m mostly assuming by population and location that 90% of the brown and spotty and stripey hawky things I’ve seen are red-tailed. The most recent one I’ve seen – and the best view I’ve ever had, if it had lasted more than 1.5 seconds – was going down Peasley Canyon Road. The bird was camping on some roadkill, counting on people to not smash him as they drove by at fifty miles per hour.
Most of the times I’ve seen these birds were from a passenger seat in a car or on a bus, looking out the window. Makes a lot of sense for them to be right by busy streets. Lots of roadkill to eat, and pigeons like to nest under overpasses, or in the supports for the light rail, that kind of thing. One of the highway encounters was just sunning itself on a median covered in sun-baked weeds. Another was flying real close to the street, by one of those pigeon underpasses.
Probably scored a bird there. The most interesting to me was on an occasion when I was either coming to or going away from Seattle in darkness, on the bus. Looking out from the highway in the direction of the Rainier Brewery building, I saw a large bird of prey hauling something as large as it. Could’ve been a fucked up dead cat or dog, but it could also have been a jacket scavenged for nesting material. It was all just shadowy shapes passing by amber steet lamps. This was before they installed the color-cycling lights on the Rainier Brewery building, which I think is now storage or studio space?
The best best view I’ve had of them – the one that lasted longer than a split second or was closer than a mile away – was of a taxidermy specimen in Kansas. It was not nearly as large as I would have expected. Scale is so hard to tell, but at the usual distance I have from them, they seem close to the size of a bald eagle. Apparently much smaller than the big guys? This is the nemesis of birders like me. Scale is almost useless for ID, so fallible are my perceptions. I once saw streaky LBBs much closer than these hawks – probably song sparrows – scavenging in a ditch, and they looked so small to me – smaller than juncos, way smaller than they should have. But they sure weren’t that small. Closest thing to the size I perceived would be kinglets, and these were definitely not those.
The only time I’ve heard their famous cry was in the Olympic Mountains, near Hurricane Ridge. After hearing it so many times on TV and in movies, never in real life, it felt pretty special. Anyway, red-tailed hawk. It’ll eat some roadkill and pigeons for you. It provided the majestic cry we associate with cinematic bald eagles. Salute.
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If I go anywhere on a motorway the odds are I’ll see some predator hovering above. As well as the road kill I think the strips of land along the edge of our motorways provide pretty good undisturbed habitat; they’re usually planted up with patches of native trees and bushes separated by rough grass. Apart from the cars whizzing by they are fairly undisturbed, the highway people cutting the grass once or twice a year, the odd travelers whose vehicle has broken down, and that’s it. The best views of hawks I’ve had were as a passenger passing fenced in fields with the bird perching on a fence post as if it was just a taller post ’til you get close enough. But my id’ing skills aren’t enough for me to say more than “bird of prey”. Less often I’ve seen owls doing the same at dusk.
The size thing can really throw you off when id’ing plants, the size depends so much on what they are growing in and can vary by feet.
I see hawks near where I work frequently – I assume that they are red-tailed hawks because those are the most common type around here. I work at a gas station that is near the intersection of two busy state highways, so roadkill is probably at least one of the attractions. There are also some wooded areas around, so there are plenty of trees to perch in.
I’m not great at bird identification, but it seems like redtails are the most common, so probably that?
A few years ago, I saw one grab a dove mid air, which was pretty impressive. I was watching the dove, thought it was acting a bit strange, and then all of a sudden, the hawk slammed into it – there was an audible “WHUMP” (probably ~50 yds/mtrs away), and a puff of loose feathers. And then the hawk(?) flew over to a near by tree, and started to eat. kinda cool to witness.
that kind of environment is probably frequented by harriers and other species of hawk as well, and as I said, they all tend to monochromatic brown, lighter on bottom, streaks or stripes, and who tf are you even looking at? i’m very grateful for the birdy app bc now i can try to catch them talkin and id them thusly.
the plant thing is interesting. my husband once found a micro-lupin in our lawn and tried to grow it in a cup, to no avail. his immediate ancestors were, proportionally to that, some godzillas.
springa, reminds me of my gas station ospreys. roadkill sux, but at least some beasts get to feast.
loch – i saw a falcon or small hawk catch a woodpecker like that some years ago. no whump that i recall, but birds of prey, yikes and wow.
Red tailed hawks are pretty common here in Vermont, but size is of little help in ID because they vary a lot. The biggest ones are close to the size of an eagle or a vulture, but you can usually tell from the plumage if you can see it, and vultures fly differently. It does get a bit confusing because there are eagles and ospreys and the like around too, but when they’re in the air, that red tail can be pretty prominent. Harriers, at least around here, tend to fly low and cruise over the fields, and if you get a good look, they have longer, barred tails. We rarely see them feasting on road kill, as I think the vultures and crows own that franchise. But there are plenty of fields and little critters in them, I guess. We have one who lives near our back field, and we see and hear it from time to time. I hope they don’t eat too many bluebirds, but I wish them a rich smorgasbord of mice.
In the winter, our red tails tend to migrate south, and their haunts are taken over by rough-legged hawks from further north. Those hawks are black and white, and can be mistaken for ospreys (but the ospreys have gone south by then). For winter spotting, the way the bird perches on a tree can differ. Red tails tend to perch on sturdy branches and wires, and stand upright, while sharp shinned hawks sit horizontally on branches that seem barely enough to support them.
Bird flu has apparently hit them recently and for the last couple of years, the rough legged hawks have been less common, and the red tails in summer also, but this year, it looks as if they’re recovering a little. There are some stretches of highway where one often sees them on the power lines and trees, spaced fairly regularly, as I think they’re pretty territorial.
When it comes to smaller hawks, I’m a complete ignoramus and can’t tell one from another unless I can take a picture and check the book. Or, in some cases, if I know what’s supposed to be there. Nearby is a section of the Green Mountains that’s closed during certain seasons for the nesting peregrine falcons. Aptly named “Mount Horrid,” it’s a good place to see peregrine falcons without being a bird expert (which I am certainly not).
sounds like you’re at least as knowledgeable as me if not more so. i am very reliant on geographic data in making IDs. certainly most of my sightings of hawks I have not been able to see the color on the tail.