For humans, window shopping can be a fun, relaxing way to spend an afternoon. For red-tailed hawks, it’s just a way to make them increasingly irritated.
There are only a few guarantees in life: Death, taxes, and birds being confused by windows. The flying creatures just can’t seem to figure out the existence of windows, and it usually only hits them…well, when they hit them.
That goes for birds of all shapes and sizes, as shown in this video below where a sizable red-tailed hawk got fooled by a car’s front windshield. A kitten that was hanging out on this car’s dashboard in California would have been a snack for the big bird if it wasn’t for the thin glass layer between the two animals.
But before we get to the video, let’s talk about red-tailed hawks….
Red-Tailed Hawks
Red-tailed hawks are one of the most widely-distributed birds of prey in the Americas. Known for their trademark brick-red tails and iconic, piercing screams, they are a familiar sight perched on telephone poles or soaring in wide circles over open fields.
Adult birds sport the namesake rust-red, unbanded tail. However, juveniles have brown, banded tails and do not get their red feathers until they molt at the end of their first year. They are large, heavily built hawks with broad, rounded wings. As with most raptors, they exhibit reverse sexual dimorphism, meaning the females are up to 25% larger than the males.
While most have rich brown backs and pale undersides with a distinctive streaked “belly band,” red-tailed hawks come in various color morphs. Some are almost entirely dark chocolate brown (dark morph), while others are extremely pale (light morph) or reddish (rufous morph).
Habitat and Range
Their range stretches from central Alaska and northern Canada down through the entire United States, extending into Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean. They are incredibly versatile and thrive in almost any biome, including deserts, dense forests, tropical rainforests, grasslands, agricultural areas, and highly populated urban cities (frequently nesting on building ledges and bridges).
They are opportunistic carnivores. Up to 85% to 90% of their diet consists of small to medium-sized mammals like mice, voles, rabbits, and ground squirrels. They will also hunt snakes, lizards, smaller birds, and occasionally feed on fresh carrion. That also means kittens… although, there’s not very many just casually wandering around outside.
As we’ll see in the video, they typically use a “perch-and-pounce” technique, sitting completely still on elevated perches (like dead trees or highway light poles) to scan the ground. They also hunt on the wing, riding thermal updrafts to soar for hours without flapping their wings.
Hollywood Voice-Over
And since it seems like this video comes to us from somewhere in Southern California, I have to mention their call. If you have ever watched a movie and heard a bald eagle let out a fierce, majestic scream, you were actually listening to a red-tailed hawk. Bald eagles actually make weak, chirping sounds, so Hollywood sound editors have spent decades dubbing the red-tailed hawk’s powerful cry over eagles and other birds of prey to make them sound more intimidating.
Now, let’s get to the video…
This kitten had no idea that a hawk was lurking nearby, and was too busy doing small kitten things (looking at interesting beads hanging from the rearview mirror, being adorable, etc.) to even notice that the hawk was swooping in to try and scoop it up.
Thankfully, the windshield acted as a “bird-shield” and kept the small cat safe from the attack. And funny enough, the kitten wasn’t even really phased by the hawk that was sitting just inches from it after it slammed into the glass.
You’d think the little thing would jump down off the dashboard and flee from the flying predator, but instead chose to stay right where it was and check out its new flying friend. As for the hawk, it kept trying to bust through what it could only comprehend as an “invisible forcefield” that was protecting the kitten.
After a number of additional talon and beak hits against the windshield, the kitten finally decided to climb off the dash and seek refuge behind the steering wheel. For good measure, it then cuddled up into the speedometer, and around that time, the hawk also abandoned its attack after the person filming went in for a close up.
It was quite the interesting interaction between the big bird and the small cat, and things would have obviously gone a lot differently if the windshield wasn’t in play.
Bald Eagle Nearly Snatches Up Someone’s Pet Yorkie
These bald eagles are really out for blood out here.
Considering there aren’t very many bald eagles in my home state, I’ve never really heard any stories of the massive birds swooping in, grabbing dogs, cats, squirrels, ducks, etc. with their talons, and flying off with them. However, it’s become more apparent to me that this actually isn’t all that incredibly rare in certain parts of the country and especially places like Alaska and Canada.
Here is the latest example…
According to For The Win, a Yorkshire terrier named Coco was almost sent into the afterlife, when a bald eagle swept in and attempted to fly off with the poor dog.
The scary incident was all caught on a doorbell camera in Prince Rupert, British Columbia, where you can see a shadow fly over Coco’s head, and an eagle swoops down from the sky to grab her off the porch. You can hear Coco crying during the scary scene.
The eagle runs into a container, clutching onto the poor dog, but Coco won in the end, as you can see her reappear in the footage a few seconds after the eagle tried to fly off with her. Still whining as she sprints back to the house, she was ultimately uninjured.
I imagine she’ll keep her head to the sky going forward…
Coco’s owner, Justin Dudoward, said he didn’t witness the scene in person that occurred last Thursday, but he could hear her crying from outside.
Gotta keep an out there in BC… eagles, coyotes, bears, mountain lions… they’ll get you from the air and from the ground.
