Western Red-Tailed Hawk: CIC Exhibit

The Red-Tailed Hawk: Nature’s Jack of All Trades

CIC Museum Research Document (Created 2/19/2026) Photograph by Aidan McCarthy. All rights reserved.

Flying overhead with steady wings and a piercing cry, the Red-tailed hawk is a familiar and powerful presence in the skies above Grays Harbor County. From open agricultural fields and coastal estuaries to forest edges and rural roads, this adaptable raptor is often seen perched high in tall trees or balanced atop telephone poles, scanning the ground below for prey. The red-tailed hawk is the largest hawk in North America, with wingspans ranging from 43 to 57 inches. Adults are best recognized by their iconic brick-red tail and pale underside, often marked with a dark “belly band”. Their sharp, rasping shriek is so iconic that it is frequently used in films and television as the call of a bald eagle, even when a different species is shown on screen.

Found from Alaska to South America, red-tailed hawks inhabit an extraordinary range of environments. From deserts and grasslands to dense forests, farmland, and even cities and suburbs they persevere, making them the most widespread hawk in North America. Their ability to hunt a wide variety of prey and adapt to changing conditions has earned them a reputation as nature’s 'jack of all trades'.

The Diversity of Red-Tailed Hawks

There are currently at least 16 recognized subspecies of the Red-tailed hawk, each differing in overall size, plumage color, and regional adaptations. Here in Washington, including Grays Harbor County, the most common form is the Western Red-tailed Hawk (Buteo jamaicensis calurus).

This western subspecies is especially known for its remarkable variability in plumage. When individuals of the same subspecies display distinctly different color patterns due to genetic variation, those differences are called morphs. Western red-tailed hawks may appear in a light morph (pale underside with a dark belly band), a dark morph (overall deep brown, sometimes nearly chocolate-colored), or an intermediate morph that blends characteristics of both.

What sets the Western subspecies apart from many other red-tailed hawk subspecies is just how common and dramatic these morph variations are.

If They’re All the Same Species, Why Do They Look so Different?

These differences developed over thousands of years as populations became geographically separated and adapted to local environments. Variations in climate, habitat type, prey availability, and even light conditions can influence which traits are best suited for their survival. For example, darker plumage provides better camouflage in forested or overcast regions, while paler birds blend more effectively into open grasslands or arid desert landscapes. Limited gene flow between distant populations also allows distinct traits to become more common in certain regions.

Urban Adaptor Raptors:

When the first white settlers in North America began clearing land for agriculture and industry, they stripped away the dense grasses, forest canopies, and sheltered habitats that once protected small mammals. As forests were fragmented and open fields expanded, prey species became more exposed. These newly created edges and open landscapes made it easier for raptors to spot, pursue, and capture small animals, ultimately reshaping predator–prey dynamics across the region. As human development expanded, so did the hawks. Over the past 50 years, their population has grown by an estimated 106% in the Americas, with a current global population of roughly 3.1 million birds.

Red-tailed hawks are urban adaptors, able to survive and even thrive in landscapes heavily shaped by people. Human activity attracts rodents such as mice and rats, known as urban exploiters because they take advantage of food and shelter in cities and agricultural areas. Where rodents gather, hawks follow.

Their presence benefits our communities and our ecosystems. As skilled rodent hunters, red-tailed hawks help control both introduced and nonintroduced species, reducing crop damage and limiting the spread of rodent-borne diseases. Under ideal conditions, a single red-tailed hawk can consume 365 to 1,095 prey items per year, with about 85-90% being rodents depending on range and habitat.

Protecting our Raptors

Despite the resilience of the red-tailed hawk, life near humans can be dangerous. The leading causes of death for the Red-tailed Hawk along with several other raptor species are human-related, including: vehicle strikes while hunting along roadsides, electrocution on power poles, collisions with utility lines, and secondary poisoning after consuming rodents exposed to rodenticides or other poisons.

The story of the red-tailed hawks’ expansion across the Americas reflects a complicated relationship with wildlife and people. Human development has created greatly exploitable hunting habitat for these hawks, but also introduced other lethal issues. The red-tailed hawk thrives alongside us, yet their survival increasingly depends on how thoughtfully we share the landscape.

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