50 Fun Facts About Birds of Prey

Which bird of prey becomes the fastest animal on Earth when it dives on other birds at over 200 mph?

The peregrine falcon has been clocked at 242 mph in a dive, and it thrives in cities, nesting on tall buildings and living largely on pigeons.

Which raptor's weak, chirping call do film-makers usually dub over with a red-tailed hawk's scream?

The bald eagle makes only thin, gull-like whistles, so studios borrow a louder, fiercer voice. The United States did not make it the official national bird until December 2024.

DNA studies show that falcons are more closely related to which birds than to hawks and eagles?

Parrots and songbirds are the falcons' nearest relatives, so a falcon's hooked beak and talons arose separately from those of a hawk.

Which Arctic owl, the species of Harry Potter's pet Hedwig, often hunts in daylight unlike most owls?

The snowy owl is often active by day, especially in the Arctic summer, and its breeding success rises and falls with the supply of lemmings.

Which pesticide, banned in the US in 1972, thinned raptors' eggshells until they cracked in the nest?

DDT grew more concentrated at each step up the food chain, hitting top predators hardest, and Rachel Carson's 1962 book Silent Spring turned the public against it.

Owls can swivel their heads about 270 degrees because they are unable to do what with their eyes?

An owl cannot move them in the sockets, because its eyes are long tubes held rigid by rings of bone, so the whole head has to turn instead.

Which everyday word for looking gaunt and worn out was first used of wild, untamed hawks in falconry?

Haggard was the falconer's word for a bird caught as a wild adult rather than raised from a chick; the sense of a careworn human face came nearly three centuries later.

Many New World vultures cool down in hot weather by doing what to their own bare legs?

Defecating on them works like sweating: the liquid waste evaporates from the scaly skin and carries heat away, a habit that several storks share.

Which large raptor do Kazakh hunters in western Mongolia train to catch foxes from horseback?

The golden eagle is flown mainly at red and corsac foxes on the steppe, and it is also the bird shown on Mexico's coat of arms.

Which fish-eating raptor, found on every continent except Antarctica, plunges feet-first into water?

The osprey can swing its outer toe backwards to grip a slippery catch with two talons in front and two behind, a trick it shares only with owls among raptors.

Which pale owl with a heart-shaped face never hoots but gives a long, eerie screech instead?

The barn owl has picked up folk names such as ghost owl, demon owl and church owl, thanks to its white face, silent flight and unearthly call.

What do owls cough up hours after a meal, a tight mass of the fur and bones they cannot digest?

A pellet forms in the gizzard within six to ten hours of a meal, and collecting them shows scientists exactly what an owl has eaten without harming the bird.

What allows vultures to feed safely on rotting carcasses infected with anthrax and botulism?

Strong stomach acid, at about pH 1, destroys germs that would kill other scavengers; where vultures decline, disease passes on more easily from dead animals.

Which Greek goddess kept the little owl as a companion, a bird later stamped on ancient silver coins?

Athena's owl became a lasting emblem of wisdom, and it appeared on so many Athenian coins that the coins themselves came to be known as owls.

Which ancient Egyptian sky god, the son of Isis and Osiris, was usually shown with a falcon's head?

Horus was said to be the sky itself: Egyptians believed the Sun was his right eye and the Moon his left as he flew across the heavens as a falcon.

Which collective noun for owls did C. S. Lewis use for the birds' night-time council in The Silver Chair?

A parliament is both a flock of owls and a political assembly, the pun behind the chapter in which Narnia's talking owls meet to explain how a prince vanished.

Vultures and eagles gain height without flapping by circling inside which rising columns of sun-warmed air?

Thermals form where the Sun heats the ground, and glider pilots seek out the same lift, often marked by a lone cumulus cloud at the top.

In most birds of prey, unlike most other birds, how do adult females typically differ from males?

They are larger, a reversal of the usual pattern in birds; falconers even gave the smaller male hawk a name of his own, the tiercel.

Which long-legged African bird of prey hunts on foot and often stomps victims to death?

The secretarybird stands about 1.3 metres tall, taller than any other raptor, and despite its fame as a snake killer it lives mostly on insects and small animals.

Which rainforest raptor of Latin America snatches sloths and monkeys from the treetops?

The harpy eagle has the largest talons of any living eagle and takes its name from the bird-bodied wind spirits of Greek myth.

Which American scavenger sniffs out hidden carcasses, a skill so rare in birds that rivals follow it to food?

The turkey vulture homes in on a gas released as decay begins, while king vultures and black vultures cannot smell carrion from afar and simply follow it down.

Which North American raptor was down to 27 birds when the last wild ones were captured for breeding in 1987?

The California condor has the widest wingspan of any North American bird, about three metres, and zoo-bred birds have since been released in California, Arizona, Utah and Mexico.

What is the name for an eagle's lofty nest, a pile of sticks that is reused and enlarged year after year?

An eyrie, also spelled aerie, gains fresh material every breeding season, and one nest in Florida grew six metres deep and weighed over two tonnes.

Which toxic metal, swallowed as bullet fragments in shot game, poisons eagles and other scavenging raptors?

Lead poisoning was found in about half the eagles sampled across 38 US states in a 2022 study, and it caused roughly one in eight of the eagle deaths examined in Michigan over 30 years.

The words 'raptor' and 'rapid' both descend from one Latin verb, which has what basic meaning?

To seize is the root sense, a fitting label for birds that grab live animals in their feet; in Latin itself a raptor was a robber or plunderer.

What is the term for crows and small songbirds ganging up to dive at and harass a perched hawk or owl?

Mobbing protects nests by driving a predator off, and the racket also strips the hunter of surprise, making a stealth attack impossible.

The pointed 'ears' on top of many owls' heads play no part in hearing; what are they made of?

Feather tufts, found on about half of all owl species, can be raised or flattened and are thought to signal mood and intent to other owls.

Which widespread owl of the Americas, nicknamed the tiger owl, is one of the few regular predators of skunks?

The great horned owl earned the nickname from early naturalists who called it a winged tiger, and it lives mainly on rabbits, hares, rats and mice.

Haast's eagle, the heaviest eagle known, died out once humans had killed off which giant New Zealand bird?

The moa was the eagle's main prey, a flightless giant weighing up to about 200 kg, which explains why the hunter itself grew so enormous.

What is a raptor's nictitating membrane, which shields each eye during a high-speed hunting dive?

A third eyelid, it is see-through, so the bird keeps a target in view as it sweeps across to wipe the eye; parents also close it when feeding their chicks.

Many owls can pinpoint prey they cannot see because which paired features sit lopsided on the skull?

The ear openings are placed asymmetrically in several owl groups, and a gap of about 30 millionths of a second between them is enough to fix where a rustle came from.

Which mountain scavenger carries large bones high into the air and drops them onto rocks to reach the marrow?

The bearded vulture is the only known vertebrate that lives mostly on bone, and it turns its pale plumage rusty orange by bathing in iron-rich mud.

What do falconers call a falcon's steep, high-speed hunting dive, made with the wings folded back?

A stoop starts from a great height, and the falcon aims to clip just one wing of its target so that it is not injured itself by the impact.

What do birdwatchers call a flock of migrating hawks wheeling and circling together as they ride rising air?

A kettle may owe its name to birds swirling like something boiling in a pot, and a single one can hold several different species at once.

In some eagles the older chick routinely kills its younger sibling, a habit named after which biblical figure?

Cain, who murdered his brother Abel in Genesis, gives biologists the word cainism; in Verreaux's eagle the elder chick kills the younger in over 90% of nests.

Which cattle painkiller all but wiped out India's vultures by poisoning the carcasses they fed on?

Diclofenac causes kidney failure in the birds and has been banned for veterinary use in India since 2006; as they vanished, feral dogs multiplied and rabies deaths rose.

Old World and New World vultures look alike without being close relatives, an example of which process?

Convergent evolution shaped both groups for the same carrion-eating life, yet American vultures form a family of their own while Old World ones sit with hawks and eagles.

Which raptor of the American Southwest is unusual for hunting cooperatively in packs of up to seven birds?

Harris's hawk hunts in groups more routinely than any other bird of prey, with one bird flushing the quarry for the rest, and the same helpers pitch in at the nest.

Which small owl of the American grasslands scatters mammal dung around its nest to lure beetles to eat?

The burrowing owl lives underground in old prairie dog and ground squirrel tunnels, and when cornered there it hisses and rattles like a rattlesnake.

What is a falconer's building for housing hawks called, a word later borrowed for London's royal stables?

A mews takes its name from the French for moulting, since hawks were shut inside until the moult was over; the royal stables rose on the site of the king's hawk house.

Which Arctic bird, the largest of all falcons, was reserved for kings and nobles in medieval European falconry?

The gyrfalcon was so rare and hard to obtain that a man of lesser rank was very seldom seen with one on his fist; falconers call the male a gyrkin.

The American kestrel, the smallest falcon in the Americas, was listed until 1983 under which misleading name?

Sparrow hawk was a misnomer, since the bird is a true falcon and only distantly related to Europe's sparrowhawk; it often hovers on fast-beating wings before dropping on prey.

Which tiny owl of the Sonoran Desert, the world's lightest, nests in old woodpecker holes in saguaro cacti?

The elf owl weighs only about 40 grams, and when grabbed it plays dead until the attacker relaxes its grip and the bird can slip away.

Which raptor is among Australia's 'firehawks', reported to carry burning twigs to spread wildfires and flush prey?

The black kite is drawn to smoke and gathers along a fire front to catch whatever flees the flames, a habit that has earned it the second name of fire kite.

Which African scavenger is rated the highest-flying bird after one was sucked into a jet engine at 37,000 feet?

Rüppell's vulture copes with the thin air thanks to a variant of haemoglobin that binds oxygen unusually well; the 1973 collision happened over Ivory Coast.

Which bird, Australia's largest raptor, is notorious for attacking hang gliders and paragliders in its airspace?

The wedge-tailed eagle swoops at the pilot with bill open and talons out, and its own wings can span more than 2.8 metres.

Which low-flying raptor, once called the marsh hawk, has an owl-like facial disc that helps it hunt by sound?

The northern harrier is also one of the few raptors in which one male may mate with several females, and the pale adult male is nicknamed the Grey Ghost.

What is the waxy, often brightly coloured patch of bare skin at the base of a hawk's or falcon's beak called?

The cere is named from the Latin for wax, and in raptors its colour works as a sexual signal, a richer orange marking out a heavier, fitter bird.

What is the sharp notch on a falcon's beak called, used to kill prey that hawks dispatch with talons?

The tomial tooth sets the falcons, which kill with the beak, apart from the unrelated hawks and eagles, which rely on the grip of their feet.

Which Mexican state hosts the River of Raptors, where millions of migrating birds of prey are counted each autumn?

Veracruz records the largest counts of migrating raptors anywhere, because nearly all the world's broad-winged and Swainson's hawks funnel through it each autumn.