Meet the eagles, hawks, vultures, and owls of North Carolina.

Raptors

Families include:

  • Accipitridae – Hawks and Eagles
  • Cathartidae – American Vultures
  • Falconidae – Falcons and Caracaras

General Characteristics:

  • Diurnal birds of prey.
  • Sharp, hooked beaks for tearing flesh.
  • Long, sharp, curved talons.
  • Many soar on thermals for long periods of time.
  • Hawks, eagles, and falcons are predators with very sharp eyesight.
  • Vultures are scavengers with excellent senses of smell.
  • Wide range of sizes.
    • Include some of the largest birds in North Carolina’s sky.

Owls

Families include:

  • Tytonidae – Barn Owls
  • Strigidae – True Owls

General Characteristics:

  • Nocturnal birds of prey.
    • Rest during the day in tree roosts, camouflaged by mottled feather patterns that blend with tree bark.
  • Short beaks with sharp hooks.
  • Long, sharp, curved talons.
  • Have excellent nighttime vision.
    • Most species have large, yellow eyes.
  • Have superb hearing.
    • Asymmetrical ear openings are concealed by distinctive arrangement of feathers into facial disks.
    • Allows owls to pinpoint prey positions in total darkness.
  • Feathers are adapted to muffle the sound of the owls’ flight.
  • Generally medium-sized to large birds.

To jump to the details for each individual species, click on the animal’s name in the list below.

To see the full list of every animal included in Now I Wonder, please visit the Index page.

Index Of Raptors By Name

Species

Index Of Owls By Name

Species

Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus)

Class

Aves

Order

Accipitriformes

Family

Accipitridae (Hawks and Eagles)

Genus species

Haliaeetus leucocephalus

  • The Bald Eagle has been the United States of America’s National Symbol since 1782.
  • In December 2024, it became the USA’s National Bird.
  • Nearly driven into extinction thanks to pesticides and hunting, the Bald Eagle is recovering in many parts of its former range, thanks to the brilliant, admirable, and almost too late intervention of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which banned the insecticide dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane (DDT) in 1972, and the protections granted this magnificent bird under the Endangered Species Act.
    • Despite this recovery, Bald Eagles face many hazards from environmental pollution, hunting, and infectious diseases.

How To Find and Identify Bald Eagles

  • Wingspan: 6 – 7.5 feet (1.8 – 2.3 m)
    • Females are slightly larger than males.
    • Bald Eagles are the biggest, baddest raptors in North Carolina’s sky, and one of the largest birds found in the state. Their maximum wing span is matched only by the Brown Pelican (Pelecanus occidentalis), whose habitat is restricted to the Atlantic Coast regions.
  • Adults:
    • Large, black-brown body and wing feathers.
    • Bright white head and neck feathers.
    • Bright white tail feathers.
    • Bright yellow beaks.
  • Juveniles:
    • Mottled black-brown and white feathers.
      • Lack the white head and tail feathers of adults; white feathers come in during molts as the juveniles age to sexual maturity.
    • Two-toned beaks; yellow by face, shades to dark brown towards hook.
  • Both juveniles and adults have:
    • Massive, heavy, hooked beaks
    • Bright orange feet tipped with long, thick, curved, black claws
    • Long wings
  • Look for Bald Eagles along lakes, rivers, and deep marshes and estuaries.
    • Bald Eagles winter along the coasts and large rivers of much of the United States (Bull and Farrand, Jr. 1994).
    • Sub-adult Bald Eagles may be found near landfills, using them as both a food source and a source of heat from decomposition (Elliott et al. 2006).
  • Build huge, messy stick nests on high trees.
    • Mated pairs re-use the same nests over many years, barring damage to the nests or supporting trees from disasters like building construction activity and hurricanes.

Behavior Notes: Bald Eagles

  • Bald Eagles are primarily fish eaters that hunt directly by swooping down on fish swimming near the surface of a lake or river and snatching the fish up with their long, sharp, curved talons.
    • The birds find their fish prey by sight; they either soar over the water surface or settle on high perches and scan the water with their phenomenal eyesight.
  • Bald Eagles compete directly with another fantastic, but much smaller, fish-eating North Carolina bird, the Osprey (Pandion haliaetus).
    • Unlike Ospreys, Bald Eagles rarely enter the water when hunting; they prefer to fly very close to the surface and simply snatch shallow-swimming fish.
    • Being much bigger and stronger, Bald Eagles often steal fish from Ospreys in areas where the two species co-exist.
  • Fish make up the majority of Bald Eagles’ diets but Bald Eagles also take other prey, especially when raising nestlings. Prey delivered to Bald Eagle nestlings in north-central Indiana by their parents over a 75 day period included:
  • Common prey other than fish can include:
  • Home ranges and core use areas vary:
    • In one study, an adult male Bald Eagle had home ranges of 1.6 square kilometers (non-nesting season) and 1.3 square kilometers (nesting season) and core use areas of 0.2 square kilometers (non-nesting season) and 0.1 square kilometers (nesting season) (Slankard, Patton, and Watts 2021).
  • Bald Eagles require isolation to successfully breed and rear eaglets. Parents can be driven to abandon nestlings if humans encroach on the nest areas.
    • Never crowd, harass or molest nesting birds, or investigate bird nests.
    • Stay an absolute minimum of a quarter mile (0.4 km) from any adult Bald Eagle or nest (Stokes and Stokes 1989).

Barred Owl (Strix varia)

Class

Aves

Order

Strigiformes

Family

Strigidae (True Owls)

Genus species

Strix varia

  • Barred Owls hunt at night but rest out in the open on tree branches during the day.
    • This habit makes the Barred Owl the easiest owl species in North Carolina to see.
    • Barred Owls are frequently mobbed by American Crows (Corvus brachyrhynchos) for the same reason.

How to Find And Identify Barred Owls

  • Wingspan: 3.67 feet (1.1 meters)
    • Females are slightly larger than males.
      • Barred Owls are the second largest owl species found in North Carolina, outsized only by the wingspan of the Great Horned Owl (Bubo virginianus).
  • Male and female Barred Owls look similar.
    • Stocky.
    • Mottled black-brown and white head feathers.
    • Gray eye disks.
    • Dark brown eyes.
    • No ear tufts.
    • Pale chest streaked with black-brown markings.
  • Sub-adults resemble adults, with redder feathers.
  • Look for Barred Owls in mature forests with minimal undergrowth.
    • Mature trees have cavities in which Barred Owls nest.
    • Woods that have clear lines of sight from the trees down to the ground help Barred Owls spot prey (Stokes and Stokes 1989).

Behavior Notes: Barred Owls

  • Often hoots during the day.
    • Voice is a distinctive hoot that sounds like “Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you all?”
  • Territory: Approximately one square mile (2.6 square kilometers) (Stokes and Stokes 1989).
  • Barred Owls appear to be territorial—or at least curious. They fly in to investigate either the hoots of other Barred Owls or recordings of Barred Owl hoots.
  • Barred Owls hunt at night but often rest out in the open during the day, perched on horizontal tree branches, concealed by thick cover.
  • Prey on small animals including:
    • Rodents, like mice, rats, voles, and Eastern Gray Squirrels (Sciurus carolinensis)
    • Birds, including eggs and chicks of Barn Swallows (Hirundo rustica) (Mahony 2017).
    • Snakes
    • Frogs
    • Crayfish (Meritt and Eul 2013)
    • Occasionally carrion of animals usually taken as live prey, like squirrels (Kapfer, Gammon, and Groves 2011).