"By Alan Vernon (Flickr: Red-tailed Hawk in flight) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
Red-tailed Hawk Buteo jamaicensis
Status.
Category E
Native Range
North and Middle America. There are many races (twelve) but the species breeds from central Alaska, the Yukon, and the Northwest Territories east to southern Quebec and the Maritime Provinces of Canada, and south to Florida, the West Indies, and Central America. In much of the USA the species is resident but the Canadian population moves southwards.
Conservation Status
Least Concern
British Occurrence
NBN atlas has 478 records as at end 2024. Map Here.
There is a specimen in the Natural History Museum, Tring (BMNH 1939.12.9.3588) said to have been obtained in Kirkwall. Orkney, on 16 March 1919. The identification is accepted, but the stated origin is doubtful.
Presumed or confirmed escapes reported from Northumberland, East Yorkshire, Suffolk, Hants, Manchester, Durham, Notts and Norfolk. Has bred but hybridisation with Common Buzzard is frequent. A recent recorded attempt (with Common Buzzard) was in 2006 in Nottinghamshire.
In Nottinghamshire, a bird identified by John Gould as this species, was shot in autumn 1850, but the specimen was lost and the BOURC does not accept the record.
More recently, a known escape frequented the Barton-in-Fabis area of Notts from 2006-2013.
