I have a family of Red-Tailed Hawks living in one of my trees. The baby hawks are tearing across the sky, diving and screeching –learning their role: Predator.
Red-Tailed Hawks live comfortably with humans and we have been very comfortable together year after year. When I looked up the formal name of the birds, Buteo jamaicensis, I stumbled across the information that hawks, as well as eagles, vultures, falcons and owls are generally referred to as raptors. Raptors. The dinosaur heritage. The name raptor is apparently applied to birds with strong sharp talons for picking up and carrying away prey and who have hooked bills for tearing their prey to pieces. http://www.10000birds.com/
As fearsome as these Red-Tailed Hawks might be to rabbits, squirrels, rats and mice, they are homebodies at heart. They like to make a home in one place, long term. They are monogamous and generally mate for life. Both parents incubate the eggs that are laid in a big stick nest.
I have always thought my guardian dog and rooster protected my chickens from the resident hawks. The 100-pound Great Pyrenees will jump and snap at the birds when they fly too low. But it turns out Red-Tailed Hawks don’t care to eat other birds, although I think they like to tease my dog. Other hawks, like Cooper’s Hawks, prey on birds: robins, sparrows and chickens. A friend regularly has to watch as one of her chickens is carried away by a hawk. Farmers used to shoot them all but the decline of farmers has resulted in an increase in the hawk population, including my Red-Tails who were shot out of ignorance and the usual human tendency to overkill.
They are welcome residents here although my blood runs a little cold when I hear one of them has made a kill. As they carry their dinner skyward, they let out the most piercing shriek, full of triumph. Raptors.