Raptor Facts!

-That bald eagle scream you've heard on TV or in the movies? That's actually the call of the red tailed hawk. Hollywood often uses the hawk's shrill cry as a replacement for the eagle's high pitched whistles.

-The peregrine falcon is one of the greatest conservation success stories! With a combination of captive breeding, reintroduction, and the ban of a chemical pesticide called DDT, they are no longer an endangered species.

-The barn owl is found on every continent on Earth, the only exception being Antarctica.

-The eyes of owls are fixed in their sockets and can not move independently of their head, part of why owls have such excellent binocular vision! This is also the reason why owls seem to “bob” their heads, it allows them to better triangulate the distance and position of their prey.

-The scientific name of turkey vultures, Cathartes aura, means “purifying breeze” which reflects vultures’ ability to clean-up animal remains. A task which they have adapted to excel at!

-Bald eagles try to return to the same nest every year. On average, their nests are usually 2-4 feet deep, 4-5 feet wide, and weigh more than a ton! Each year, they will add more material to the nest to replace any that dislodged while they were gone, or simply to make it larger. Some have been found as large as 9 feet wide, and weighing more than most modern SUV's!!!

-Holding the title of the worlds fastest animal, the peregrine falcon is able to reach speeds in excess of 240 mph when diving to catch it’s prey (typically other birds) in mid air! Many aspects of their bodies are specially adapted for travel at such speeds.

-Owls (and other raptors) act as a natural "pest control". A barn owl family can eat 3000 rodents in a four-month breeding cycle... and a solitary owl can eat 50 pounds of gophers in a year! Many cost-minded farmers are installing owl nesting boxes in the hopes that owls will clean out pests like gophers and voles from their land. This natural form of pest control is safer and cheaper than using poison, and it’s better for the owls too. Poisons and pesticides are a primary cause of death for raptors, as it taints their food chain.

-The prevalence of 24 hour sunlight during the Arctic summer forces snowy owls to hunt by daylight. The result is, unlike most owls that are nocturnal, snowy owls have adapted to be diurnal!

-While most other owls have yellow eyes, the eyes of a Barred Owl are brown. Named after the dark bars of coloring on its chest, the Barred Owl is also the most vocal of Eastern owls. In fact, it is sometimes called the laughing owl due to its many vocalizations. To identify by sound, just listen for the call that resembles the phrase "who cooks for you....who cooks for you alllllll?"

-All raptors (with the exception of owls) have a crop, which is a pouch located halfway between their mouth and stomach. Food is often stored here and then released as needed for nutrients and energy. Though they still prefer to eat every day, if a large enough meal is consumed, the bird may be able to go without eating for multiple days!

-Like eagles, falcons, and other hawks, red-tailed hawks see in magnification, and with saturated color perception that is far superior to humans. Red-tails are capable of spotting a small mouse a mile away. A human may not notice a small brown mouse on a brownish rock, but to a red-tail who sees that mouse two to three times larger than we do, and whose color saturation gives him the ability to distinctly see the difference in the brown of the mouse and the brown of the rock, spotting the mouse is much easier.

-Harpy eagles (native to South America) are one of the world’s largest eagles. They are so big in fact, that their hallux (a raptor’s back talon) averages 3 to 4 inches in size... that's roughly the same size as a grizzly bear’s claw! In the world of raptors, females are typically larger than males, and the female Harpy eagle can weigh up to twice the weight of their male counterparts. Unfortunately, populations of the (already "threatened") Harpy eagles are in steep decline due to habitat loss in the form of deforestation.