In the United States, chickenhawk or chicken hawk is an unofficial designation for three species of

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...

n hawks in the family Accipitridae: Cooper's hawk (also called a quail hawk), the sharp-shinned hawk, and the Buteo species red-tailed hawk. The term "chicken hawk", however, is inaccurate. Although Cooper's and sharp-shinned hawks do primarily hunt other birds,

chicken The chicken (''Gallus gallus domesticus'') is a domesticated subspecies of the red junglefowl (''Gallus gallus''), originally native to Southeast Asia. It was first domesticated around 8,000 years ago and is now one of the most common and w ...

s do not make up a significant part of their diets; red-tailed hawks may opportunistically hunt free-range poultry, but are chiefly predators of mammals such as rodents and rabbits. Historically, misinterpretation of the name "chicken hawk" has labelled these birds as pests, hence justifying their slaughter. Officially, per the American Ornithologists' Union's list of bird names, the term has become obsolete as applied to birds, but still enjoys widespread colloquial use in rural areas where any of the three species has been seen as a threat to small outdoor animals kept as pets or livestock, especially chickens. While the term is still widely used by those who keep such animals, it is too ambiguous to be of any scholarly usefulness, especially since the meaning of hawk differs between America and Europe; thus, the term's propriety (or lack thereof) depends entirely upon context. The unofficial names of other raptors that are derived from their supposed prey include:

duck hawk The peregrine falcon (''Falco peregrinus''), also known simply as the peregrine, is a Cosmopolitan distribution, cosmopolitan bird of prey (raptor) in the family (biology), family Falconidae renowned for its speed. A large, Corvus (genus), cro ...

( peregrine falcon), sparrowhawk (American kestrel), goshawk (northern goshawk), pigeon hawk (merlin), fish hawk (osprey), cuckoo-hawk, and quail hawk (Cooper's hawk).

In popular culture

* Henery Hawk is a cartoon character created by Chuck Jones and Robert McKimson in the ''

Looney Tunes ''Looney Tunes'' is an American media franchise produced and distributed by Warner Bros. The franchise began as a series of animated short films that originally ran from 1930 to 1969, alongside its spin-off series ''Merrie Melodies'', during t ...

'' series. The premise of this character was that he was too young to know what a chicken was, hence although having a great deal of energy, was easily tricked into thinking that other animals (usually the Barnyard Dawg or

Sylvester Sylvester or Silvester is a name derived from the Latin adjective ''silvestris'' meaning "wooded" or "wild", which derives from the noun ''silva'' meaning "woodland". Classical Latin spells this with ''i''. In Classical Latin, ''y'' represented a ...

) were chickens. The character Foghorn Leghorn was introduced to complement the Henery Hawk character, but quickly eclipsed him in popularity. He, along with the rest of the ''Looney Tunes'' cast, returned in the latest ''Looney Tunes'' installment, a sitcom called '' The Looney Tunes Show''. In addition to the aforementioned Henery Hawk, ''Looney Tunes'' features chicken hawks Elvis and Pappy. * '' Jim Henson's Animal Show'' featured Armstrong the Chickenhawk (performed by Bill Barretta), who is the show's expert on birds. * An episode of '' The Waltons'', "The Hawk", had a secondary plot dealing with a chicken hawk.

References

The stars of Looney Tunes
Hawks Accipitridae {{Accipitriformes-stub