Red-tailed Hawk, juvenile, at sunset

Buteo jamaicensis

Red-tailed Hawk · Torrey Pines State Reserve · 7 March 2026

A young Red-tailed Hawk at sunset on the bluff at Torrey Pines, the default large hawk of California and of everywhere else in North America. It hunts the open scrub and the cliff edge here, riding the updraft off the sea.

Pale, mottled head and an evenly dark brown back and tail rather than the rufous tail an adult would show: a juvenile. The band of dark streaks across the belly, against an otherwise pale front, is the mark that carries the identification when the tail can't. Young Red-tails take about two years to reach adult plumage, and spend much of that stretch looking notably paler and plainer than their parents.