Great Birds of Prey Trivia Quiz

Answer: blue-gray

The male kestrel has blue-gray wings. The female kestrel has reddish-brown wings with black barring. Kestrels have large heads and notched beaks, with streamlined bodies. Both genders have reddish brown backs barred with black. Their crowns are a blue-gray with varied amounts of reddish brown.

Their faces and throats are white with a black vertical stripe below their dark eyes, with another black stripe behind the cheek. Their beaks are blue-black and their legs and feet are yellow. The tail of the male is reddish brown with one wide and black band, which is sub-terminal.

His tail also has a white tip. The female tail is reddish brown with black bars. The underside of the female is heavily streaked with brown, while the male is white to buff orange with dark spotting or streaking.

They are slightly larger than robins with the female being about 10 to 15% larger than the male.

Answer: Maine

This bird spends its summers in the western half of North America. In the winter it will be found in the open pampas of Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay and southern Brazil. Some small groups will spend winter in southeastern Florida and along the coast of Texas, likely having not found their way to the Gulf of Mexico. This bird prefers wild prairie, pastures and hayfields rather than agricultural fields.

Answer: bird of Jupiter

This bird has a wing span of forty-eight to sixty inches and weighs between two and one fifth pounds to four and a half pounds. Its length is between twenty-one and twenty seven inches. Its head is whiter than most other species of hawks. In general it lays two to four eggs in a clutch.

Their eggs are a whitish color with irregular spots or blotching in a reddish brown color. The bird of Jupiter is another name for the Golden Eagle.

Answer: primarily on cliff ledges, cavities or crevices

Amazingly, this great predator, the prairie falcon, prefers cliff edges to nest on, as well as the crevices and/or the cavities on these cliffs. The prairie falcon does not build a nest, but scrapes debris that is loose, to form a spot to hold the eggs.

He will use abandoned nests of eagles, hawks or ravens. Sometimes the prairie falcon will nest in trees, on power line structures, in caves and on buildings. All in all, its nesting preference is on cliff ledges.

Answer: kettles

The turkey vulture can form into very large flocks called "kettles". When it migrates it does so almost entirely by gliding. It uses thermal updrafts to keep itself up in the air, often as high as 21,000 feet. It will not migrate on rainy or overcast days due to lack of thermals. On occasion it will make short water crossings. It will ride thermals to several hundreds of feet and then glide to the next thermal in order to avoid actually flying. Its preference is gliding.

Answer: snakes

The diet of the sharp-shinned hawk is mostly small birds like warblers, finches, sparrows, thrushes, blackbirds, quails, swallows, vireos and flycatchers. He also feeds upon some small mammals like the squirrels, mice, bats and small rabbits. On occasion he will feed upon large insects like crickets, caterpillars, dragonflies and grasshoppers.

Answer: forages on the wing

This beautiful and exquisite bird forages on the wing. As he flies he captures prey while coursing low above the ground. His style is buoyant and gliding with intermittent flapping of his wings. The chase is usually short and spatial. Sometimes this clever bird uses the cover of terrain and vegetation to make a surprise attack on its prey. This bird is also known for subduing larger prey by drowning it. Unlike most hawks, this hawk often relies very much on auditory cues and visual cues in order to capture prey.

Answer: bald eagle

The bald eagle is dark brown with a white head and tail. It has large eyes, a large beak and large yellow feet. The adult plumage is attained once the bird is about four to five years of age. As a juvenile the plumage is all brown, changing to mottled heads and tails with varying degrees of white on the belly, back and under the wings, until finally mature. The juvenile has dark brown eyes and beak, until it reaches maturity, at which time its eyes and beak turn yellow.

Answer: three toes pointing forward and one toe pointing backward

Birds of prey have very powerful leg and toe muscles. Their feet are truly lethal weapons, perfectly designed to catch, hold, carry and kill prey. Depending on the type of prey it pursues, is the deciding factor in the length and size of its toes. The curve and thickness of its talons also depends on the size and type of its prey. Most birds of prey have three toes that point forward and one that points backward.

Their toes have an extremely powerful grip which literally crushes their prey to death.

These talons can also kill by piercing the vital organs and soft tissue of the prey. The osprey, just like owls, has one hinged toe that it can hold forward or backward, allowing them to hold fish with a more secure grip.

Answer: inflicting a death bite to the throat

When the Cooper's hawk attacks prey it flies rapidly and then glides for the last twelve to fifteen feet before sudden impact on the prey. Upon impact he grasps the prey with his strong talons, usually killing it on impact. He will also grasp and relax his grip repeatedly, until prey is dead.

The Cooper's hawk is known to drown its prey holding it under water until it ceases to move. The hawk will then carry its prey to a perch then pluck and tear it into pieces.