Red-tailed Hawk (Red-tail)

The Red-tailed Hawk is a powerful and robust raptor with broad wings and a short, wide tail. Adults typically feature a rich reddish-brown upper body and a distinctive bright brick-red tail. Known for soaring in wide circles, they scan the ground for rodents and small mammals using exceptionally sharp eyesight.

Rich brown and greyish-white background with distinct dark brown horizontal barring across the vane; prominent pale margins on the trailing edge; robust whitish-tan rachis.

Pennaceous vane with tightly interlocked barbs and barbicels creating a smooth, wind-resistant surface; plumulaceous (fluffy) downy base near the calamus.

Stiff, smooth, and durable with a matte finish; excellent structural rigidity designed to withstand aerodynamic forces during flight.

Distinctive dark brown transverse bars or spots on a greyish-white or pale background, robust whitish rachis, and broad rounded vane typical of a Buteo secondary flight feather.

Extremely adaptable, inhabiting deserts, scrublands, urban areas, scrub, grasslands, agricultural fields, and deciduous or coniferous forests.

Widely distributed throughout the Americas, breeding from central Alaska and northern Canada down to Panama and the West Indies, mostly remaining year-round residents.

Acts as a top apex avian predator regulating populations of small rodents, rabbits, and snakes, thus maintaining healthy balanced local ecosystems.

Swainson's Hawk or Ferruginous Hawk feathers can look similar, but differ in exact barring width, coloration hues, and sizing relative to body proportions.

Red-tailed hawks have incredible eyesight that is about 8 times sharper than a human's, allowing them to spot a mouse from 100 feet in the air. Their famous piercing cry is frequently used in Hollywood films to sound like any soaring eagle or hawk.

Good condition; the vane is fully intact with minimal wear, barbs are well-interlocked, and the rachis shows no signs of breakage or fault bars.