Harris’s Hawk

Harris’s Hawk
Parabuteo unicinctus

Our Harris’s hawk is Saguaro! In 2017, Saguaro came to us from South Carolina where he was raised by parents that are both animal ambassadors (his mother was also a falconry bird!). Harris’s hawks have been pushed out of California due to habitat loss. Having him as an ambassador allows us to discuss why this has happened and what we can do to help in the future.

His name pays homage to the Saguaro cactus, one of the Harris’s hawk’s preferred perching plants in the Southwest. These hawks will not only perch on top of those towering giants, but they’ll also perch on each other to get a better vantage point, in a behavior called “stacking”!

These days, Saguaro takes part in our new free flight training. During this training, Saguaro is offline and fitted with a GPS transmitter! This allows Saguaro to fly easily through the trees above our Raptor Redwood Grove and show off just how agile he is.

Saguaro thoroughly enjoys completing long flights over open ground, catching prey items in mid-air and finding a nice high perch from which he can observe the world.