Birds of Prey Identification: Hawks, Falcons, Eagles, Owls

To identify a bird of prey, first sort it into a shape group, then confirm with markings and the way it flies. Pete Dunne, writing for Audubon in 2016, names the three clues as size and shape, complexion (plumage) and motion, and stresses that distant identifications are built from several clues rather than made at a glance.

What makes a bird a raptor at all: Wikipedia defines birds of prey as birds that hunt and eat other vertebrates, with keen eyesight, strong feet with sharp talons, and powerful hooked beaks. The Wildlife Trusts give the same field marks: hooked bills, sharp talons, strong feet and keen eyesight and hearing.

Dunne sorts North American daytime raptors into four groups, with the Northern Harrier, Osprey and kites as exceptions:

• Buteos: large, broad-winged and short-tailed, with spare, labored wingbeats. The red-tailed hawk is the classic example: adults have a brick-red tail ending in a single black band and a dark band across a whitish belly (Wikipedia).
• Accipiters: small, narrow-tailed forest hunters that fly with short, rapid bursts of flaps and a glide. Cooper's hawk is larger than the sharp-shinned hawk, with a bigger head and a longer tail; the smallest male Cooper's always outweighs the largest female sharp-shin (Wikipedia). Cooper's hawks often hunt at backyard feeders.
• Falcons: slender, with pointed wings and steadier wingbeats. Dunne separates the American kestrel (pale, a double 'mustache', floats when gliding) from the darker, heavier merlin (fast, piston-like wingbeats) and the peregrine (shallow, elastic wingbeats on long tapered wings).
• Big dark birds: eagles and vultures, the largest, making spare use of their wings. The turkey vulture holds its wings in a shallow V, tips from side to side, shows silvery flight feathers below and, as an adult, a small red head (Wikipedia).

The exceptions: the Osprey is brown above and white below with a dark mask through the eye, and flies on arched wings with drooping 'hands' like a gull; fish make up 99% of its diet (Wikipedia). For eagles, see our bald eagle feather guide.

Look at the wings first. Falcons have thin, tapered, pointed wings built for speed and fast turns; hawks have broader wings, rounded in accipiters and wide in buteos (Wikipedia; Audubon). Falcons also kill with their beak, using a notched 'tooth' on its cutting edge, while hawks and eagles kill with their talons (Wikipedia).

The two groups are not even close relatives: Wikipedia notes that falcons are more closely related to parrots and songbirds than to hawks and eagles. The peregrine falcon has been recorded diving at 320 km/h (200 mph), with a fastest recorded vertical dive of 390 km/h (240 mph).

Wikipedia groups the daytime birds of prey into these families, with owls as the night-hunting birds of prey:

• Accipitridae: hawks, eagles, buzzards, harriers, kites and Old World vultures
• Pandionidae: the Osprey
• Sagittariidae: the secretarybird of Africa
• Cathartidae: New World vultures, including turkey and black vultures and condors
• Falconidae: falcons and caracaras
• Strigidae and Tytonidae: owls and barn owls

Common North American species named on this page: red-tailed hawk, Cooper's hawk, sharp-shinned hawk, American kestrel, merlin, peregrine falcon, Osprey, Northern Harrier, turkey vulture, black vulture, bald eagle and golden eagle.

Common UK species from The Wildlife Trusts: sparrowhawk, buzzard, red kite, golden eagle, white-tailed eagle, goshawk, marsh harrier, hen harrier, kestrel, peregrine, hobby, merlin, tawny owl, barn owl, short-eared owl and long-eared owl.

The Wildlife Trusts' key marks for the species most people see:

• Buzzard: the most frequently seen; brown, from dark to quite pale, with broader wings and a shorter tail than harriers or red kite.
• Sparrowhawk: one of the smallest; the male blue-grey above with orange barring below, the female larger, about pigeon-sized. Visits gardens.
• Red kite: large and reddish-brown, with white patches under black-tipped wings and an unmistakable forked tail.
• Kestrel: a little larger than a feral pigeon, with long wings and tail; the male has a grey head and tail.
• Peregrine: the biggest UK falcon; slate-grey above, barred below, with a black mask and 'moustache'.
• Marsh harrier: holds its wings up in a distinctive V.
• Barn owl: heart-shaped white face and white underside, hunting over grassland.

No single official count ranks every raptor, but the red-tailed hawk is the usual answer: Wikipedia calls it one of the most common and most widely distributed hawks in the Americas, with about one million in the United States. It lives in deserts, grasslands, forests, farmland and cities, but is absent from unbroken forest and the high Arctic. Adults are 45 to 65 cm long with a 110 to 145 cm wingspan; look for the brick-red tail and the dark belly band.

Most raptor photos are taken against the sky, where color disappears. Shape and pattern survive, so aim for:

• The whole bird in flight from below, to show wing shape (pointed, rounded or broad), tail length and any belly band or wing-lining contrast
• A perched side view, to show head size, tail length and tail color
• A short video, since Dunne's third clue is motion: flap rate, gliding and wing angle all show up in a few seconds

NatureLens can suggest a species from a photo, with free scans every day. Check the answer against the shape group first; a falcon suggestion for a bird with broad, rounded wings is wrong.

Research and drafting for this page used AI assistance. Every measurement, date and claim was then checked against the sources listed below, which were opened and read on 2026-09-25. Where two sources give different numbers, both are shown.