Birds of prey, or raptors, are birds that hunt using their beaks and talons.

Condors, eagles, falcons, hawks, owls and vultures fall into this category.

Birds of prey can be divided into two groups, daytime (diurnal) hunters and night-time (nocturnal) hunters.

Diurnal (daytime) hunters include hawks, eagles, kites, vultures, harriers, osprey, falcons, etc. This order’s common traits include the hooked beak, sharp talons and keen vision, a hind toe that opposes other toes and exceptional flight.

Eagles are medium to large-sized, and use soaring or sprinting flight to hunt. They build a stick nest and lay as many as three eggs. Falcons, conversely, are smaller, use fast, strong flight when pursuing a kill and do not build nests. Hawks can soar, sprint, fly slow and walk on the ground to catch prey. They lay up to 6 or more eggs with a green inner lining.

Nocturnal (nighttime) hunters include all owls. The shared traits are rounded heads, large, forward-directed eyes set in feathered disks and soft-edged flight feathers that allow silent flight, according to Science for Families.

There are many threats to birds of prey, both human and natural.

Some natural factors include climate change, lightning or volcanoes, predators, parasites, disease and age.

Human factors include habitat destruction due to increased population growth, environmental contamination, electrocution, shooting.

Environmental degradation is particularly unsettling and destructive. Birds and mammals become soaked in oil, which reduces the thermal properties of their feathers or fur and they eventually die from hypothermia and starvation.

Pesticides residues build up in raptors that eat animals or insects that have ingested pesticides. During stress or when food supplies are low, pesticides stored in the tissues are released into the blood stream. When these pesticide levels reach a lethal dosage in the bird’s organs or nervous system, it dies.

Birds also collide with cables, towers, vehicles in large cities and large windows.

It is illegal to capture or kill a raptor, and to possess a raptor, alive or dead, without proper permits from local, state governments and the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service.