Animal
Red-tailed hawk
Buteo jamaicensis
The most-common large hawk in North America — broad-winged, soaring, with a distinctive rusty-red tail in adults. Year-round resident across Staten Island; nests on the borough and is among the most-frequently-seen raptors at the Greenbelt, Mount Loretto, Conference House, and over residential neighborhoods. Famous for the keening cry that Hollywood routinely substitutes for the bald eagle's actual chittering call.
Scientific
Buteo jamaicensis is a 2–4 lb buteo with a wingspan of 4–5 ft. Generalist predator — small mammals (mostly rodents and rabbits), birds, snakes, lizards. Hunts from perches and from soaring. Reaches reproductive maturity at 2–3 years; pair bonds long-term, often using the same nest tree across years.
The species is among the most-successful adapters to human-altered landscapes — comfortable nesting on highway light poles, urban park trees, even [[manhattan|Manhattan]] window ledges (the famous Pale Male of Central Park).
On Staten Island
Year-round resident. Nests on the borough; pairs hold territories at the Greenbelt, [[mount-loretto-unique-area|Mount Loretto]], [[conference-house-park|Conference House Park]], Latourette, and many residential blocks with mature trees. Soaring birds visible over the borough’s open areas year-round. The most-likely raptor a borough resident encounters on a daily basis.
See also
Auto-generated from this entry’s typed relations: frontmatter, grouped by relation type so the editorial signal isn’t flattened.
- Member of: [[animal]]
- Contained by: [[staten-island]]
Sources
- Cornell Lab of Ornithology eBird and species accounts
- NYC Audubon SI raptor-monitoring records
Rooted in life.
What links here, and how
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Scientific
shares approach with
- Cooper's hawk the borough's two most-encountered diurnal hawks — red-tailed in open soaring flight, Cooper's in fast forested-edge pursuit
substrate of
- Eastern cottontail cottontails are a principal prey species for the borough's red-tailed hawks, great horned owls, foxes, and coyotes
2 inbound links · 2 outbound