Ever since I started reading Animorphs, I have fallen in love with red-tailed hawk. They are beautiful, fast, agile, and amazing hunters. Dose anyone have a red-tail?

Man, i just had a flashback, not doing anything all day while i read those books while i was in middle school. I used to love to go to the mall to hope the next one was out, an i suffer from the same affliction. Im in love with red tailed hawks now.

I have a lot of hawks flying over my property.. I am not sure if they are red tail.. but, to me they sometimes are a nuience..
I think they are the ones that steal my baby ducks

as long as my dogs are out, they pretty much stay away. but, I still see them flying above me..

that just reminded me, a few years ago, I found a dead hawk on my back porch.. that was raelly odd, because it is not often we see dead hawks, especially so close to the house..it looked like it was half grown or better.
I can't even begin to image what happen to it..
any thoughts on this?

Could have been a dog, could have just died naturally, but that's pretty rare.

it would have been rare for a dog to kill a hawk.
generally they are pretty quick and sharp.

maybe it was sick.

unless my dogs got it, but, I would be surprised.. who knows, anything is possible..

It's sort of funny, because, personally, I'd do anything to have hawks and coyoties in my backyard! :D It would make the place alot more interesting. But because of this, I can't believe how little people know about animals. They were some visitours at camp that didn'tt know the diffrence between a lion and tiger. They called Kumara (tigress) a lion! OK, I know I'm exagerating but still. I actually got the chance at camp a few times to feed a red-tail named Nodin. His tail isn't as red as thought. Ity's more a rust brown than a rust red.

Its pretty common to find dead juvenile hawks. Alot of them just dont have the hunting skills to survive these early days. They die of malnutrition.

I used to have a red kite that had lost one leg in a trap. These birds are so majestical.
I wonder what idiot would do such a thing to them. It must have been a neighbour of ours. This spring I found a dead bussard on the street near our house. He had also freshly lost one leg and starved to death. I thought about bringing it to the police. But as there was the bird-flu-hysteria, I couldn't expect them to care for animal abuse. They would probably have sent it to a lab to discover that it had died of bird-flu rather than its amputated leg and malnutrition, so I decided not to do it.

We don't have red-tailed hawks, here.


There is a woman in our village who feeds a bunch of red kites daily. They come so close, I'm sure they would take the food out of her hands.

We only feed the wild birds of prey in winter. Especially when there is a lot of snow they are often very starved and exhausted, and as people used to bring such birds to us, when they were too weak to fly away, we decided to feed them before they come here at the brink of death. But those are mostly bussards.

that is so very sad.. I just can't understand how people can do this to any bird or animal..

I think foot traps should be illegal.. too many people set them and don't check them for a long time..

I had to use this for my fox that escaped.. I hated to use one, but this was the only way I could catch him.. but, I made sure, I was right there when he did get caught.. he was in the foot trap for not even 5 minutes, and he had a mark on his leg.. so I can't even image how leaving a bird or animal in a foot trap for a long time..

Where I live they are illegal, but that doesn't keep people from using them.

what happens to the people that get caught using a foot trap?

I think they are still legal in the us

I don't know. When they are licensed hunters who pay their tribute, probably nothing. The state doesn't really care about what happens to its animals so long as somebody pays money. The hunters who pay can really about do whatever they want. They have a strong lobby.

If they are private people, they will have to pay a fine or even go to prison for illegal hunting. But that's because the animal belongs to the state, so you damage state property. My "state" is very sensitive when it comes to that, like if you don't pay your taxes - that's a worse crime than murder, at least if you compare punishment...

There are laws against animal abuse, but even now, when they are in our constitution, they don't mean very much. Of course, the red kite is protected in here, so that would add to the crime, but it wouldn't result in more than paying a few hundred dollars, if anything.

guess it all boils down to "money" is top priority

red tails are beautiful bird... I get in several here at the rehab clinic... usually like lasergirl said.. young ones... hungry.. if they dont have enough food in them they cannot fly and go down.
also alot will get caught in a barbed wire fence and damage the wing...
some even get hit by cars.. and somehow only suffer minor head injuries.. requires hand feeding them.. but the majority I get in are very easy to handle.. just grab the feet.. and fast.. They are not bitters.

I agree! But no... I have seen one up close before though - we take them in at the wild-life rehabilitation center, we have 2 now. And one was really cute - he was a juvenile, and he was just growing in the red feathers on his tail, and he only had one, it was really cute. ^_^ Hehe.