I was in the driveway loading my car with fishing gear one rainy afternoon not long ago when a red-tailed hawk sailed over my head so low I could have hit it with a broomstick. It was clutching a dead bird in its talons, probably a dove. It floated across the street, lit atop the neighbor’s cucumber trellis, and began feeding on its prey. My camera was sitting on the front seat of the car, so naturally I wondered if the hawk would let me take its picture.
I began snapping pictures from where I stood because I figured he would fly off the minute he saw me take a step in his direction. I assumed it was a male, but I honestly couldn’t tell you because the males and females look a lot alike. And, while females are usually significantly larger and heavier than males, that distinction is difficult to make unless both members of a pair are together. In this case, there was only the one. I am fairly certain it was a young bird, though, because it still bore the darkcolored horizontal tail bands of a juvenile. Apparently, they retain those color bands until they are 1 to 1 1/2-years-old, after which they acquire the solid, red-brown tail colors for which they are named.
Interestingly, though, not all red-tail hawks have red tails. Their tail feathers can vary from reddish-brown to black and sometimes even white — and several shades in between. There are regional differences, too: Eastern populations have slightly shorter wings, white throats, white breasts, and a well-defined band across the belly. Western birds are more variable with light and dark phases, streaked or mottled tails, and so on. Some sources recognize at least a dozen subspecies of red-tailed hawks. Consider that they look very similar to Swainson’s, broad-winged, red-shouldered, and rough-legged hawks, and you can understand why most of us find them tricky to identify.
A few years ago I was sitting in my chair in the living room when a tremendous crash at the nearby window scared the you-knowwhat out of me. I looked up to see a puff of feathers floating in the air and a splotch of feathers and “stuff” smeared across the pane. I assumed a dove had slammed into the window, but when I went outside to check, I found a huge red-tailed hawk lying on his back, shredding a Eurasian collared dove.
The hawk gave me a very indignant look, righted itself, and lumbered into the air on enormous 4-foot wings, the hapless dove still clenched in those fierce talons. I hollered at him — “Don’t ever do that again!”— went back inside, and immediately poured myself a tranquilizer. I also moved the chair to a safer place.
Dennis Smith is a freelance outdoors writer and photographer whose work appears nationally. He lives in Loveland.