Hawks are mentioned commonly enough in Tolkien's work that we can be sure that they were familiar to peoples across Middle-earth. However, these references tend to be indirect or metaphorical, and hawks are only directly mentioned on a single occasion. As the Company of the Ring crossed the lands of Eregion in southeastern Eriador, Aragorn spoke of seeing many hawks high in the air.

There are actually two separate groups of hawks, with Accipitrinae representing those native to Eurasia (which would correspond to Middle-earth in this context). Another disparate group of about fifty further species (Buteoninae) are found in the Americas, but these would not historically have been seen in Middle-earth.