Raptor Trivia: On the Wings of Love

Raptor Trivia: Valentine's Day Edition - Day Three: Raptor Courtship Dances

We’ve learned through our various bits of research that raptors have all sorts of dramatic and interesting behaviors, many of which they carry out in the air! One of the most interesting things we’ve learned is that they engage in some striking, beautiful, and sometimes death-defying aerial behaviors just to attract a mate. Perform some mental acrobatics of your own and tell us what you know about raptor aerial mating dances.

The animated image for the Valentine’s Day raptor trivia question is of Lefty, a Harris’s hawk and one of the great Animal Ambassadors at the New Mexico Wildlife Center.

This question has several references one pertaining to each of the raptor’s in our question, and one which is a great piece about birds and their mating practices in general. The majority of our information again comes from The Cornell Lab All About Birds site, but we also got some information from The National Audubon Society which has also been a great resource for raptor information as we do research.

Reference:
https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Harriss_Hawk/lifehistory
https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Turkey_Vulture/lifehistory
https://www.audubon.org/field-guide/bird/american-kestrel
https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Bald_Eagle/lifehistory
https://www.allaboutbirds.org/news/how-do-birds-fall-in-love-a-look-at-courtship-displays

This Raptor Trivia question expired on 2-17-2020