The Red-tailed Hawk is the hawk on the highway light pole — Michigan's most visible raptor, scanning median grass for rodents with binocular patience. Adults show the namesake brick-red tail and, from below, a dark "belly band" across white underparts; young birds have banded brown tails and cause endless identification debates.
Red-tails own the sky in every open landscape in the state, soaring on broad wings and defending territories year-round. Their raspy, down-slurred scream is Hollywood's favorite sound effect — dubbed over eagles in nearly every film, since the eagle's actual voice is an unimpressive chirp.
Small mammals are the core business — voles, mice, rabbits, and squirrels — supplemented with snakes and birds up to pheasant size. Highway medians are prime vole habitat, which is why every mile of freeway seems to have its hawk.
Mowed medians and margins are ideal vole and mouse habitat, and light poles are perfect hunting perches. Highways are, accidentally, some of Michigan's best raptor habitat.
Free-ranging poultry can be at risk; covered runs solve it. Cats and small dogs are rarely taken — red-tails overwhelmingly hunt rodents. All hawks are federally protected, so prevention is the only legal response.
Almost certainly. The piercing "keeeeer" of a Red-tailed Hawk is the stock raptor sound in film — usually dubbed over Bald Eagles, whose real call is a weak whinny.
No — this is a permanent resident here, recorded in all twelve months. Numbers stay fairly steady from month to month. What changes through the year is behavior rather than presence: conspicuous song and display in spring, quieter foraging the rest of the year.
Because it is a first-year bird. Juveniles have a brown tail with many narrow dark bands, and the brick-red tail grows in during their second year. They also have paler eyes than adults, which darken with age.
Other birds you might be looking at instead.
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