Red-tailed Hawk

How to find it

Stand in the open at a forest edge in the mountains and scan the sky. Look for it soaring high over open ground, pastures and scrub. Check tall treetops and rock outcrops for perched birds. A raptor itinerary suggests driving uphill through Cinchona and Varablanca, where Red-tailed Hawk is listed as a chance at the top of the hill, along with White Hawk and Barred Hawk. Watch for the brick-red glow of the tail when the sun is out.

How to recognise it

Adults are dark brown above and white below, with cinnamon sides, a cinnamon-orange tail and a chest streaked with dark brown.

The Costa Rican subspecies is larger than the typical light-morph form. It has a dark rufous belly band flecked with black and plain dark rufous thighs with no barring.

Birds in Costa Rica and Panama show a rufous belly and wing linings, pale flight feathers with dark wingtips, and a chocolate-brown head and shoulders. Perched birds show yellow legs.

Young birds are spotted and streaked with white above and have a buffy tail with thin dark bars. Across its range the species is stocky, with broad wings and dark patches on the leading edge of the wing.

What it sounds like

Recording: Mason Holum, CC BY 4.0, source, read 4 Nov 2026.

Behaviour and diet

This is a hawk of the open sky. It soars in wide circles, often high over open ground, pastures and scrub at forest edges, and its wingbeats are heavy when it flaps.

It hunts by diving from a height onto the ground or low vegetation. It takes small mammals, and sometimes lizards or birds.

Sometimes it rests on tall treetops or rock outcrops, and Costa Rican birds have been photographed on fence posts and in vegetation.

Where it lives

The costaricensis race is a resident of the highlands of Costa Rica and western Panama. It favours open or scrubby country and broken forest, and also uses pastures and volcanic slopes.

In the highlands it is locally uncommon to common from about 1000 to 1500 m upward. It is rare lower down, where forest is extensive.

It is also one of twelve true páramo residents, living year-round above about 3000 m on peaks such as Cerro de la Muerte and Cerro Chirripó.

When to see it

Costa Rica has both resident birds and northern migrants. A few migrants turn up among big flocks of Swainson's and Broad-winged Hawks during the autumn and spring passage, and some winter in Guanacaste and possibly other lowland areas.

Similar birds

Migrant Red-tailed Hawks can be mixed into big flocks of Swainson's and Broad-winged Hawks on passage, so check hawk flocks for a larger bird with a rufous tail. In young Red-tails the dark band near the tail tip is not clearly wider than the others, which separates them from every colour phase of Swainson's Hawk.

Names and lore in Costa Rica

The Costa Rican Spanish name is Gavilán Colirrojo, and a Costa Rican nature writer calls it Gavilán Cola Roja. The resident race is sometimes called Central American Red-tailed Hawk in English. Some Spanish sources also use Aguililla Cola Roja or Busardo Colirrojo.

Status and conservation

The AOCR lists it as both a resident and a migrant (R,M), and the IUCN rates the species Least Concern.

Photography tips

Costa Rican birds are often shown perched on fence posts and in vegetation, with yellow legs visible, so roadside fences in open highland farmland are a good place to look. Sunlight on the tail brings out the brick-red colour.