Head to head
Red-tailed Hawk vs Red-Shouldered Hawk
The red-tailed hawk and red-shouldered hawk are both common Buteo hawks found across much of North America, but they favour strikingly different hunting habitat and have very different reputations.
| Red-tailed Hawk | Red-Shouldered Hawk | |
|---|---|---|
| Scientific name | Buteo jamaicensis | Buteo lineatus |
| Preferred hunting habitat | Open country and perches | Dense, often wet forest |
| Distinctive feature | Brick-red upper tail | Reddish-orange shoulder patches |
| Call mimicked by another bird | No | Yes, by blue jays |
| Range | North and Central America | Eastern US and parts of California |
| Conservation status | Least Concern | Least Concern |
| Population trend | Increasing | Stable |
| Diet | Carnivore | Carnivore |
Red-Tailed Hawk vs Red-Shouldered Hawk: common questions
How can you tell a red-tailed hawk from a red-shouldered hawk?
Habitat and field marks both help: the red-tailed hawk favours open country and perches on poles or bare branches, showing a plain brick-red upper tail as an adult, while the red-shouldered hawk prefers hunting from within dense, often wet forest and shows reddish-orange patches on its shoulders instead.
Why do blue jays imitate the red-shouldered hawk?
The red-shouldered hawk produces a sharp, repeated "kee-aah" call distinctive enough that blue jays are well known to mimic it, a behaviour that may help jays clear feeding areas of competitors or alert other birds, sometimes fooling human listeners just as effectively as it fools other wildlife.
Which of these two hawks is more commonly seen?
The red-tailed hawk is considerably more commonly seen, ranking as North America's most common large hawk and thriving across an enormous range of open habitat from deserts to cities, while the red-shouldered hawk is more habitat-restricted, favouring forested and wetland-edge habitat across a smaller portion of the continent.