[5] The red-tailed hawk occupies a wide range of habitats and altitudes, including deserts, grasslands, coniferous and deciduous forests, agricultural fields, and urban areas.

[3][8] The diet of red-tailed hawks is highly variable and reflects their status as opportunistic generalists, but in North America, they are most often predators of small mammals such as rodents; prey that is terrestrial and at least partially diurnal is preferred.

[37][10] Although they overlap in range with most other American diurnal raptors, identifying most mature red-tailed hawks to species is relatively straightforward, particularly if viewing a typical adult at a reasonable distance.

Western dark morph red-tails (i.e. B. j. calurus) adults, however, retain the typical distinctive brick-red tail, which other species lack, and may stand out even more against the otherwise all chocolate-brown to black bird.

"[6][5] However, field identification techniques have advanced in the last few decades and most experienced hawk-watchers can distinguish even the most vexingly plumaged immature hawks, especially as the wing shapes of each species becomes apparent after seeing many.

[3][49] The cry of the red-tailed hawk is a 2–3 second, hoarse, rasping scream, variously transcribed as kree-eee-ar, tsee-eeee-arrr or sheeeeee,[50] that begins at a high pitch and slurs downward.

Their latter hunger call, given from 11 days (as recorded in Alaska) to after fledgling (in California), is different, a two-syllabled, wailing klee-uk food cry exerted by the young when parents leave the nest or enter their field of vision.

While the peregrine falcon (Falco peregrinus) has a greater latitudinal distribution as a nester in North America, its range as a breeding species is far more sporadic and sparse than that of red-tailed hawks.

Agricultural fields and pastures, which are more often than not varied with groves, ridges, or streamside trees in most parts of America, may make nearly ideal habitat for breeding or wintering red-tails.

[6][84] Nestlings banded in Green County, Wisconsin, did not travel very far comparatively by October–November, but by December, recoveries were found in states including Illinois, Iowa, Texas, Louisiana, and Florida.

Because of the extremely high density of red-tailed hawks on this range, some pairs came to specialize in diverse alternate prey, which consisted variously of kangaroo rats, lizards, snakes or chipmunks.

[127][128] In Kluane Lake, Yukon, 750 g (1.65 lb) Arctic ground squirrels (Spermophilus parryii) were the main overall food for Harlan's red-tailed hawks, making up 30.8% of a sample of 1074 prey items.

Male red-tailed hawks or pairs which are talented rabbit hunters are likely to have higher than average productivity due to the size and nutrition of the meal ensuring healthy, fast-growing offspring.

[6][10][40][136] Most widely reported are the cottontails, which the three most common North America varieties softly grading into mostly allopatric ranges, being largely segregated by habitat preferences where they overlap in distribution.

[86] In the boreal forests of Canada and Alaska, red-tails are fairly dependent on the snowshoe hare (Lepus americanus), falling somewhere behind the great horned owl and ahead of the American goshawk in their regional reliance on this food source.

[129][140] Another member of the Lagomorpha order has been found in the diet include juvenile white-tailed jackrabbit (Lepus townsendii) and the much smaller American pika (Ochotona princeps), at 150 g (5.3 oz).

Some nests have been found (to the occasional "shock" of researchers) with body parts from large domestic stock like sheep (Ovis aries), pigs (Sus domesticus), horses (Equus caballus ) and cattle (Bos taurus) (not to mention wild varieties like deer), which red-tails must visit when freshly dead out on pastures and take a couple of talonfuls of meat.

As these are meaty, mostly terrestrial birds which usually run rather than fly from danger (although all wild species in North America are capable of flight), galliforms are ideal avian prey for red-tails.

[6][120] Over 50 passerine species from various other families beyond corvids, icterids and starlings are included in the red-tailed hawks' prey spectrum but are caught so infrequently as to generally not warrant individual mention.

[160] Even larger, in at least one case a grown hatch-year bird was caught of the rare, non-native Himalayan snowcock (Tetraogallus himalayensis), this species averaging 2,428 g (5.353 lb) in adults.

[185] Other than turkeys, other larger birds occasionally lose young to red-tails such as trumpeter swans (Cygnus buccinator), sandhill cranes (Grus canadensis) and great blue herons (Ardea herodias).

[216][217][218] Of these three Buteo species, the Swainson's hawk is most dissimilar, being a long-distance migrant which travels to South America each winter and, for much of the year, prefers to prey on insects (except for during breeding, when more nutritious food such as ground squirrels are mainly fed to the young).

The red-tails migratory behavior was considered as the likely cause of this lack of effect, whereas great horned owls remained through the winter and was subject to winter-stress and greater risk of starvation.

[244] Hawks have been observed following American badgers (Taxidea taxus) to capture prey they flush and the two are considered potential competitors, especially in sparse sub-desert areas where the rodent foods they both favor are scarce.

[28] A typical sky-dance involves the male hawk climbing high in flight with deep, exaggerated beats and then diving precipitously on half-closed wings at great speed, checking, and shooting back up, or often plunging less steeply and repeating process in a full rollercoaster across the sky.

Even males that are in spring migration have been recorded engaging in a separate display: circling at slow speed before partially closing wings, dropping legs with talons spread and tilting from side-to-side.

They may too nest on virtually any man-made structures with some variety of ample ledges or surface space and good views of the surrounding environment (i.e. powerline poles, radio transmission towers, skyscraper buildings).

[10][6] A red-tailed hawk nest is typically located in a gradient zone between woods with tall, mature trees, if available, and openings whether this is composed of shrubland, grassland or agricultural areas.

[9][284] In Puerto Rico, nests are most often found in transitional zone between dry lowlands and mountainous cloud forests, with trees typically taller than their neighbors to allow views of more than half of their home ranges.

[10] Neither this nor other Buteo hawks were found to be highly susceptible to long-term DDT egg-shell thinning due to being part, generally, of relatively short, terrestrial-based food chains.