Keeping Common Birds Common

For several years a pair of Red-tailed Hawks raised a family in a bulky nest built on a narrow ledge on the vertical wall of Fall Creek Gorge, although the site is no longer active. Hawks share nesting tasks: here one has switched places with the other to take over incubation duties. The nest structure contains live evergreens. They may have been placed there because the aromatic compounds they contain act as a natural repellent against insects, mites and other skin/feather parasites. Red-tailed hawks often build large stick nests high up (30 to 120 feet off the ground) in mature trees like oaks, pines, cottonwoods, and sycamores.