How Do You Tell Male & Female Hawks Apart?
Hawks, birds of prey with short hooked bills and powerful claws, are all members of the order Falconiformes. The most common type of hawk in North America is the red-tailed hawk, a striking-looking bird with cocoa-colored back feathers, a pale underbelly, and a reddish tail. Other varieties of hawk include sharp-shinned hawks and red-shouldered hawks, commonly called chicken hawks. Telling male and female hawks apart is very difficult, because both sexes exhibit identical plumage. Even scientists have a hard time differentiating between the sexes; in order to be positive of a hawk’s gender, they have to analyze the feathers for sex-specific DNA markers. However, there are some behavioral and size differences between male and female hawks; by using your powers of observation, you can make an educated guess. Identify the female hawk by her larger size—usually 25 to 35 percent larger than the male—when you see a pair of hawks together. Hawks exhibit reverse sexual size dimorphism—a
