by Charly Mann

The average red-tailed hawk lives twenty years in the wild. Its eyesight is eight times more powerful than a human’s. Like the song Oklahoma says these birds do "make lazy circles in the sky." They soar very high, and use their great vision to spot rodents, rabbits and snakes below.

They usually weigh between 3 and 5 pounds. Females are nearly 1/3 larger than males. Their wingspan is 56 inches. They can carry almost half their body weight in flight. It is not unusual, for example, for one to lift a duck out of a pond.

Red-tailed hawks are great at reducing rat populations. Almost 90% of their diet is small rodents.

These birds are classified as raptors. This means they are part of the family of birds that eat meat, and use their feet, instead of their beak, to capture prey. Red-tailed hawks, like all raptors, have a sharp, hooked beak, and powerful feet with curved, sharp talons. Their talons are their main weapon for capturing and killing animals.

The Red-tailed hawk is very intelligent and is one of the easier raptors to tame. Throughout the United States and much of the world hawking or falconry is a popular sport in which trained hawks capture game. Red-tailed hawks actually train their falconers as much as their falconers train them.

The female (hen) Red-tailed Hawk is the most desirable in falconry because of its larger size, which allows it to take medium sized animals including ducks and pheasant. They are a very relaxed and friendly bird in captivity, and love to go hunting. They need to be played with (trained) or taken hunting every couple of weeks or they will revert to their wild state. They can fairly effortlessly be returned to the wild before breeding season.

photos by Kathryn Mann

I haven’t gotten to know all the birds that inhabit my backyard, but the cardinals, hummingbirds (now gone), and the Downey woodpeckers have become good friends who I recognize quickly, and often come very close to me. All of these guys have very unique personalities – as different as one cat or dog from another. My Downey couple are the most functional couple I know. They do almost everything together, and enjoy twenty to thirty minutes each day playing with one another. A few days ago they brought their two offspring over – a male (this one pictured) and a female. The adults are small, about six inches, and weigh about an ounce. This youngster is about half that size.

Female Downey woodpecker, hummingbird, and male cardinal in my backyard

Female Downey woodpecker baby.

by Charly Mann

The Aztecs believed that hummingbirds were brave souls returning to earth. I have been able to get close to a couple of these souls recently as they now allow me to sit or stand within a foot of where they perch in my backyard. I placed 9 X 12 sheets of colored paper along a wall behind where they sit and fly around to enhance the backgrounds of these pictures.

by Charly Mann

Cardinals do not migrate, staying in the same area year round. We have a multi-generation family of eight cardinals in our backyard that have been with us for more than five years. The oldest male often comes up to us on our back patio to bring us a seed.

The brighter the red of a male cardinal, the larger territory it dominates and the more offspring it is responsible for.

The cardinal is the state bird of North Carolina, Ohio, West Virginia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, and Virginia.

While the cardinal is found throughout The United States, it may soon disappear in California because of loss of habitat.

Cardinals live between three and ten years on average, though some have lived for more than fifteen years in the wild.

Adult cardinals weigh around one and a half ounces. They are about 9 inches in length, and have a wingspan between 10 and 12 inches.

Male cardinals are bright red, while female cardinals are buff-brown with a red tinge on their crest, wings and tail. Both have orange bills and black faces.

The Holy Grail is said to have the power to heal all wounds. The legend originates in Celtic mythology. It is about a cauldron, which is a large metal pot, that has special powers. Later, a group of Christians revised the story, and made the Holy Grail the cup Jesus drank wine from at the Last Supper.

We have it on good authority that both legends are fabrications, and that the real Holy Grail is a small red, green, and blue bird that bestows the gift of a wish come true for those who see it.

by Charly Mann

The Indigo or Blue Bunting is one of my favorite birds. They are not really blue at all, but black. Their feathers, however, diffract light, which makes them appear blue. In the wild these beautiful creatures live from four to eleven years. They are very small, only about 5 ½ inches in length.

The male Indigo bunting has a beautiful song, which he uses to attract females and keep up with his babies. The songs are unique to the territory a bunting calls its own. It learns the song from an older male bunting. Buntings return to the same area each year. All the males in one area have songs similar to one another, but quite different from buntings in other areas.

The Indigo Bunting migrates south as far as 2,000 miles to South America, Mexico, and the West Indies between August and October. They travel in large flocks at night using the stars for navigation. The poor Bunting who is held captive as a pet becomes disoriented during migration months because he cannot see the stars.

Unfortunately the number of Indigo Buntings is declining because, while they can see the stars, they, like most birds, don’t see well at night, and many die running into tall buildings and radio towers. The current plan to build hundreds of thousands of large windmills across the United States as an alternative energy resource will be a large threat to their population.

The male (blue) buntings take a real vacation in their warm winter homes. Their feathers turn a yellow-brown like the female, and only a few streaks of blue distinguish the male from the female. The male also stops singing while in his winter habitat.

by Charly Mann

The hummingbird is one of the smartest animals on the planet. It has the largest brain relative to size of any bird, compromising 4.2% of its body weight. I have gotten acquainted with several hummingbirds that fly within a few feet of my head, and they look inquisitively at me as they hover. They also seem to sense my interest in them, as they perch closer to me than any other bird I observe. Some hummingbirds are even known to sit on the shoulder of people they trust.

The hummingbird might better be called the Lovebird because they have the largest heart proportionally in body weight of any animal. Its heartbeat is 480 beats per minute when at rest and can go as high as 1,260 per minute when active. A human, on the other hand, has a typical heartbeat of 75 beats per minute.

Most people would love to have the metabolism of a hummingbird. It has the highest of any animal known to man. They eat three times their body weight each day, and don’t gain an ounce. In fact, the average hummingbird weighs only 0.106 ounces! That is 3 grams. They also eat five to eight times an hour during the day. Each meal lasts 30 to 60 seconds. Hummingbirds love sugar, which comprises the primary portion of their diet. Most of this comes from flower nectar and tree sap. A hummingbird can feed on 1,000 flowers in a single day. They also catch spiders and gnats in midair for protein.

The hummingbird is the only bird that can rotate its wings in a circle. It is also the only bird that can fly backwards. Hummingbirds are exceptionally strong. 30% of their weight is muscles for flight.  They can also fly up, down, sideways, hover in one spot, or even fly upside down. They also fly in an upright position instead of horizontal like most birds. They fly at about 27 miles per hour.

Hummingbirds are not found in Europe, Asia, or Australia, but only in North America and South America.

Hummingbirds have more feathers per square inch than any other bird. Many of their feathers are iridescent, which means the color we see is caused by how the sun is absorbed by the hummingbird’s body. This enables the hummingbird to change colors depending on how much light they are exposed to.

Like most birds (except the vulture) they have no sense of smell.  They can see in color and have acute vision. Their eyes are positioned in such a way that they can see both straight ahead and peripherally. They are particularly attracted to red because it is the color of most nectar producing tubular flowers.

North American hummingbirds migrate as far as 2,000 miles. Before they begin their journey, their weight almost doubles to store energy for their trip. Many fly 18.5 hours non-stop when they cross the 500 miles of the Gulf of Mexico.

Most hummingbirds live about 3 years, though occasionally they can live twice as long.

This is a Cardinal. They weigh about 46 grams

This is a Sparrow. They are fairly small and weigh about 16 grams.

This is a Chickadee. They are very small and weigh about 9 grams.

This is a Hummingbird. They are very tiny, about the size of an index finger. They weigh about 3 grams.

This is a Great Egret. It is a large white heron that can be found throughout much of the world. It is the symbol of the National Audubon Society.

Their wingspan averages around 5½ feet.

Great Egrets live to be about fifteen in the wild, though some have lived as long as 23 years.

Great Egrets stand motionless in the water waiting for fish, snakes, frogs, or insects to catch.

This is the one of the smallest birds in the world. It would take five of these guys to equal the weight of a chickadee (a very small bird).

This is a juvenile Great Blue Heron. The Blue Heron averages about 4½ feet in height and has a wingspan of 6½ feet. They can fly up to thirty miles an hour.

Posters of this photo are available from informZoo in 16" x 12", 24" X 18", and 40" X 30" format. All prints are on archival photographic paper ensuring vivid color and great detail.  For pricing details, e-mail us at .