Here is a description of one of my made-up animals:

Nighthawk
Size: approximately 16-20'' (not counting tail length) 2.5-3.2lbs, females are larger and more powerful while males are more agile fliers.
Physical Description: black or dark blue wingtops, cap and head stripes. Dark azure eyes and ceres. Yellow-gold to pale brown-gold talons and beak. Silver-gray or light blue belly, neck and tail with darker blue or gray flecks; the tail has horizontal blue or black stripes. Pointed wingtips.
Hunting style: hunts rodents and some small birds. Flies above prey and stoops (dives) to stun it, then dives again to catch the prey. A few have been known to hide in trees and stoop on animals below.
Habitat: nests in cliff sides, occasionally will nest in wide-limbed trees. Scrapes nest with talons and lines with down feathers, grasses, moss and other soft material. Lives in [unnamed] forest-covered mountains. Travels to higher altitude during summer to hunt and flies back to foothills in late fall and nests in early spring.

~•†•~
What do you think? I am open to any suggestions... I will probably change the name since the bird is more like a falcon than a hawk.

Very well done! You are good at coloring. I like the markings, and I like the idea.

Pretty awesome!

Not really... the birds are most active around nightfall/dusk and in the early morning. They do not hunt at night (like owls) but they do also hunt during the day. Like I said, they are just more active at low-light times of the day.




Right now, they are simply a rare falconing bird. One of my main characters has one which he uses for hunting. I am debating about whether or not I should make them one of my six special animals. (I'll post about the Six later.) They might also be used as scouts/message bearers, but then a higher level of intelligence is needed for them to communicate with their masters...




Thanks. I'm better at coloring than drawing.

Beautiful!

How intelligent are they?
But they sound (and look) amazing!

About as intelligent as a smart peregrine falcon... but I may change that fact and make them slightly more sapient. (If that makes sense...)

Cool! I love the picture you drew. I am almost more of an visual artist then a writer, and that was a really good picture with lots of detail.

The birds sound amazing. I love the coloring and marking descriptions.

How big are they? Are they born tamed, or do they have to be caught in the wild? Are they easily trained?

Ciela Rose,
About the size: they are approximately 16-20'' (not counting tail length) 2.5-3.2lbs. I had this written at the beginning of the description under "size".

No, they aren't born tamed, they must be tamed by the falconer. However, some are born in captivity and are therefore more friendly towards humans. I don't think they would be considered easy to train, but their training won't take long if done by someone who knows what they are doing. (In other words, not me. I don't know much about falcon-training. )

I didn't draw the picture. It's actually the female merlin from one of the Dover coloring books. I scanned it after I colored it and then edited out the other bird.

I really like the idea, very nicely done! Looking forward to reading about the Six, too.

Thanks. I'm pretty proud of them, myself.

Actually, there are now only four of those special animals, instead of six. (I have one creature for each element: air = gryphons, fire = dragons, water = sea-dragons, earth = unicorns/Adallaon (see other thread).)

They sound really pretty!

Cool.

That's really cool looking!