Red Tailed Hawk

Red Tailed Hawk
Falco borealis [now Buteo jamaicensis]
Folio edition, plate 51

“The Red-tailed hawk is a constant resident in the United States, in every part of which it is found. . . . Its flight is firm, protracted, and at times performed at a great height. . . . [H]e rises in circles . . . to an immense height, where he looks like a white dot in the heavens. Yet from this height he must be able to distinguish the objects on the ground, even when these do not exceed our little partridge or a young hare in size.” 

John James Audubon, Ornithological Biography, or An Account of the Habits of the Birds of the United States of America (Edinburgh: A. Black [et al.], 1831), vol. 1, p. 265-266.

View bird in National Audubon Society Guide to North American Birds.

A specimen of this species, collected by Audubon, is housed within the collections of the Natural History Museum in London.