Immature Red-tailed Hawk

Buteo jamaicensis

Red-tailed Hawk · Green-Wood Cemetery · 29 August 2026

A young Red-tailed Hawk perched low in an oak at Green-Wood at the end of August, with a clear sightline down through the canopy, which is how the species often hunts in a setting like this: watching from a branch rather than soaring, dropping onto squirrels and other prey below. Red-tails breed in the cemetery and the city's parks, and this bird was probably hatched within a mile.

Still in first plumage. The heavy dark spotting across the belly, gathered into a loose band, is a young bird's pattern, and the tail is still grey-brown and finely barred; it will moult into the plain rufous tail the species is named for over its second year. Broad-winged Hawk is the other realistic candidate at this age and season, but the heavier, more concentrated belly band is more typical of a young red-tail.