Chicken Hawk
by Jon Burch Photography
Title
Chicken Hawk
Artist
Jon Burch Photography
Medium
Photograph - Digital Capture & Enhancement
Description
Chicken hawk is an unofficial designation for three species of North American hawks in the family Accipitridae: Cooper's hawk, also called a quail hawk, the sharp-shinned hawk, and the red-tailed hawk shown here.
Although Cooper's and sharp-shinned hawks may attack other birds, chickens do not make up a significant part of their diets; red-tailed hawks have varied diets, but may opportunistically hunt free-range poultry. (or snakes, in this case…)
Historically, misinterpretation of the name "chicken hawk" has labelled these birds as pests, thereby justifying their slaughter. Officially, per the American Ornithologists Union's list of bird names, the term has become obsolete as applied to birds, but still enjoys widespread colloquial use in rural areas where any of the three species has been seen as a threat to small outdoor animals kept as pets or livestock, especially chickens.
This example of a red-tailed hawk is a bird of prey that breeds throughout most of North America, from the interior of Alaska and northern Canada to as far south as Panama and the West Indies. It is one of the most common members within the genus of Buteo in North America or worldwide. The red-tailed hawk is one of three species colloquially known in the United States as the "chickenhawk," though it rarely preys on standard-sized chickens. The bird is sometimes also referred to as the red-tail for short, when the meaning is clear in context. Red-tailed hawks can acclimate to all the biomes within their range, occurring on the edges of non-ideal habitats such as dense forests and sandy deserts. The red-tailed hawk occupies a wide range of habitats and altitudes including deserts, grasslands, coniferous and deciduous forests, agricultural fields and urban areas. Its latitudinal limits fall around the tree line in the Arctic and the species is absent from the high Arctic. It is legally protected in Canada, Mexico and the United States by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.
Some digital effects were applied to the original image after the photograph was made. No electrons were harmed during the transition. Ordered images will not contain the FAA watermark
Image copyright 2018 Jon Burch Photography
Uploaded
September 10th, 2018
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