Red-tailed Hawk - Buteo jamaicensis
This is Veronica. She's a wild hawk with an interesting story...Veronica has lived on the property at White Memorial Conservation Center in Litchfield, Connecticut for at least 10 years. She was first noticed one morning when the wildlife rehabilitator went to feed their resident hawk, and found Veronica sitting on top of the hawk's cage. She hopped to the side and watched as the wildlife rehabilitator fed the hawk in the cage. The worker threw Veronica a mouse, and she's been around ever since. Sometimes they won't see her for a couple months, but she always comes back and will wait on top of the building for someone to come out and toss her a treat. You can see a bit of red guts on her beak that was left over from her most recent snack.
The red-tailed hawk is a bird of prey, one of three species colloquially known in the United States as the "chickenhawk," though it rarely preys on standard sized chickens. It breeds throughout most of North America, from western Alaska and northern Canada to as far south as Panama and the West Indies, and is one of the most common buteos in North America.
