Description
Life span:
Adult Red-shouldered Hawks are distinguished by their brownish heads, reddish chests, and light bellies with reddish bars. By Buteo standards, their tails are quite lengthy and patterned with thin white bars. The crimson “shoulders” of the birds are evident when they are perched. These hawks have long yellow legs and dark upper bodies with light markings. Florida birds tend to be whiter, but birds in the West are typically redder. Adult wings have heavier upper-side barring. Young red-shouldered hawks are frequently mistaken for young broad-winged hawks, but you can tell them apart by their long tails, wing markings that resemble crescents, and flapping, Accipiter-like flight patterns. It is slightly smaller and more slender than the majority of common Buteo species in North America, but larger and longer proportioned than the broad-wing. This bird is occasionally mistaken for the more typical red-tailed hawk.
Native Region/Habitat
A raptor found in forests, the red-shouldered hawk. In the East, they inhabit upland mixed deciduous-conifer woods, flooded deciduous marshes, and bottomland hardwood stands. For easier hunting, they like to live in stands with an open sub-canopy. Red-shouldered Hawks can be found in suburban areas where houses or other buildings coexist with woodlands as well as in deep forests. In the West, you can find them in eucalyptus trees, oak woodlands, riparian areas, and a few residential neighbourhoods.
Behavior
Red-shouldered hawks glide through forests beneath the canopy of trees like accipiters like Cooper Hawk while also soaring and circling like a regular buteo hawk. They sit near a forested body of water when they are hunting and watch for prey to come into view below them. In crowded environments, such as forested suburban developments, they can become highly careless and friendly, yet they are readily flushed in more untamed areas. When other hawks intrude on their territory, Red-shouldered Hawks will sometimes lock talons with them before attacking crows, Great Horned Owls, and even people. The male engages in a “sky dance” in which he soars while calling, followed by a series of steep dives in the direction of the female, rising in wide spirals after each descent, before swiftly diving to perch on her back.
As a pet/In captivity
Red-shouldered hawks cannot be kept as pets unless the owner is an expert falconer. It need special certification to keep a hawk. Despite being challenging to care for, they make interesting pets. When kept as a pet, hawks are wonderful. They are powerful and graceful birds that may be taught to do a wide range of jobs. On the other side, owning a hawk comes with some obligations, so it’s important to be aware of them before committing.
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