Birds of Central Oklahoma

All birds Hawks, Eagles, and Kites

Red-tailed Hawk, adult
Adult Photo by Mark Bohn of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Northeast Region. CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Red-tailed Hawk

Buteo jamaicensis

Here all year.

Recorded by Richard E. Webster. CC BY-NC-SA 4.0, via xeno-canto, trimmed and volume evened out.

Look for

  1. A big, bulky hawk with wide, rounded wings. It often sits on a pole by the road.
  2. Adults have a reddish brown tail. When one flies over you, the red shows through.
  3. From below, the front edge of each wing looks dark near the body. The rest of the bird can be pale, reddish brown, or almost black.

A little about it

You can see Red-tailed Hawks here all year, but there are many more in winter. Some Red-tails that nest far to the north fly south for the winter.

A Red-tail often hunts from a high perch. When it spots food, it swoops down and grabs it with its sharp claws, called talons. It also hunts by flying over fields and looking down.

It eats mostly small animals like voles, rats, rabbits, and ground squirrels. It also eats snakes, and even birds as big as a pheasant.

The nest is a big bowl of sticks, often in the tallest tree around. It can be up to 120 feet off the ground. Some Red-tails nest on towers or buildings, even in cities. The young leave the nest at 6 or 7 weeks old.

Fun fact

In spring, a pair soars in high circles and calls out. The male may catch food and pass it to the female while they're both in the air.

When it's here

Taller bars mean more sightings. Most often seen in December.

How big

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17 to 26 inches, with wings about 4 feet across. A little bigger than a crow, with big, wide wings.

Where to look

Open country with tall perches. Check poles and tall trees along roads, and the sky over fields.

  • Fields and roadsides
  • Flying overhead
  • In the woods

People have spotted it at Lake Stanley Draper, Martin Park Nature Center, Stinchcomb Wildlife Refuge.

Could it be something else?

  • Red-shouldered Hawk

    Its tail has narrow black and white bands, and its chest is reddish. It stays closer to woods and water. A Red-tail's tail is plain reddish on top.

  • Young Red-tailed Hawk

    Its tail is brown with dark bars. Look for the dark front edge on the wings when it flies.

Where these facts come from