Buteo Jamaicensis Review

High above the sun-scorched valleys of the American Southwest, a , known to the world below as the Red-tailed Hawk , carved invisible circles into the rising heat. Her name, according to the scientists who first studied her kind in 1781, was a tribute to Jamaica , yet she was a queen of the entire North American continent.

She was built for the air, a master of soaring and kiting . With a wingspan stretching nearly four feet, she didn't need to flap; she simply let the thermals carry her three-pound frame higher until the world became a tapestry of textures. Her eyes, eight times more powerful than a human’s, scanned the ground from hundreds of feet up, detecting the slightest twitch of a field mouse’s ear in the tall grass. buteo jamaicensis

As the sun began to dip, she spotted a movement near a utility pole. The hawk tucked her wings, transforming from a broad glider into a feathered bullet. She could reach speeds of up to 120 m.p.h. in a dive. With a silent, deadly grace, she struck. Her talons, her primary weapons, secured the meal. High above the sun-scorched valleys of the American