A. It's a young bird begging for food, says Stanley Temple, a professor of wildlife ecology at UW-Madison. "This is the time of year when the young redtails have left the nest, and they are wandering about and getting hungry, so they beg."

The call is an annoying, far-carrying noise "that they use to tell their parents, who are out hunting, 'I'm hungry, here I am, deliver food soon!' "

Redtails hatch in early May and leave the nest in June for their first tenuous flights. But they won't be able to feed themselves for a couple of months or so. "The screeching is designed to get attention," Temple says, "like the cry of a human baby."

And it's likely to continue through the summer, although it may taper off as the young start to catch their own food.

If you look closely, you'll notice that the redtail hawks making this noise do not actually have red tails, Temple says. Rather, they have the brown, barred tail that marks a juvenile. Since redtails commonly have two or three young, it's quite likely that siblings are still together at this point.

At night, baby great horned owls make a similar begging racket that may be even louder and more persistent than the calls from the redtails, Temple says. "The raspy call is annoying, it travels well, and it's easy to localize."

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