Red-tailed Hawk (Buzzard, Chicken Hawk)

The Red-tailed Hawk is a powerful, robust raptor with broad wings and a short, wide tail. Adults typically feature a distinctive rust-red tail, pale breast with a streaked belly band, and dark brown upperparts. They are iconic soaring predators often seen perched along highways or circling gracefully on thermals.

Rich warm brown and cream-white horizontal barring across the vane, featuring distinct alternating dark brown bands against lighter greyish-brown and white backgrounds, with a pale whitish base

Strongly pennaceous through the upper vane with well-developed barbicels forming a cohesive, interlocking surface, transitioning to semiplume-like fluffy down at the very base

Smooth, firm, and matte texture with strong vane rigidity along the upper two-thirds and fluffy, soft plumulaceous barbs near the calamus

Distinctive alternating dark brown and white/cream horizontal barring patterns against a robust, rounded contour feather shape with a strong pale rachis

Extremely adaptable, inhabiting deserts, scrublands, urban areas, scrub, grasslands, agricultural fields, coniferous and deciduous forests from sea level to timberline

Widely distributed throughout North America, ranging from Alaska and northern Canada down through Central America and the Caribbean

Acts as a top apex avian predator helping to regulate rodent and small mammal populations, serving as an important indicator of ecosystem health

Cooper's Hawk or Sharp-shinned Hawk, though their feathers are typically smaller and feature finer, denser slate-gray or brownish barring; Swainson's Hawk shares similar habitats but features distinct plumage variations

Red-tailed hawks have exceptional vision—about eight times sharper than a human's—allowing them to spot a mouse from 100 feet in the air. Their iconic scream is frequently used in Hollywood films to sound like any soaring eagle or hawk.

Excellent condition, fully intact barbs, clean edges with no noticeable fraying, fading, or parasitic damage