{"id":8425,"date":"2026-05-16T12:54:01","date_gmt":"2026-05-16T19:54:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vernabob.com\/blog\/?p=8425"},"modified":"2026-05-16T13:40:44","modified_gmt":"2026-05-16T20:40:44","slug":"red-tailed-hawk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vernabob.com\/blog\/2026\/05\/16\/red-tailed-hawk\/","title":{"rendered":"Red Tailed Hawk"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/vernabob.com\/graphics\/imageview.php?image=http:\/\/vernabob.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/20260515-red-tailed-hawk.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/vernabob.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/20260515-red-tailed-hawk.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1200\" height=\"800\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-8426\" srcset=\"https:\/\/vernabob.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/20260515-red-tailed-hawk.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/vernabob.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/20260515-red-tailed-hawk-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/vernabob.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/20260515-red-tailed-hawk-768x512.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I asked GROK why the tail isn&#8217;t red in my photo. This was the answer:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The tail isn&#8217;t red because this is almost certainly a juvenile (immature) Red-tailed Hawk.<\/p>\n<p>Why Juveniles Lack the Red Tail<\/p>\n<p>Age-related plumage: Red-tailed Hawks do not acquire their signature brick-red tail until they are about 1\u20132 years old, during their first major molt into adult plumage. Juveniles (first-year birds) have brown tails with multiple dark horizontal bars\/bands.<br \/>\nIn your photo (taken from below while soaring), the tail shows this typical juvenile pattern \u2014 brownish with barring \u2014 rather than the solid or mostly rufous\/red color of adults.<\/p>\n<p>This is one of the most reliable ways to age them in the field. Adults usually show a bright reddish tail from above (and often a paler reddish tone from below), though lighting, angle, and subspecies can affect how vivid it appears.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Photo information: <\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Camera &#8211; Canon EOS Rebel SL3,<\/li>\n<li>Exposure &#8211; 1\/400 sec.,<\/li>\n<li>Aperture &#8211; F7.1,<\/li>\n<li>ISO &#8211; 100,<\/li>\n<li>Focal Length &#8211; 155mm,<\/li>\n<li>Lens &#8211; Canon EF-S55-250mm f\/4-5.6 IS STM.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I asked GROK why the tail isn&#8217;t red in my photo. This was the answer: The tail isn&#8217;t red because this is almost certainly a juvenile&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38,12,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8425","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arizona","category-critters","category-photography"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vernabob.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8425","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vernabob.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vernabob.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vernabob.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vernabob.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8425"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/vernabob.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8425\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8430,"href":"https:\/\/vernabob.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8425\/revisions\/8430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vernabob.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vernabob.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vernabob.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}