Participant Photo: Juvenile Red-shouldered Hawk Up Close
Additional images:
Yesterday, Sunday, working in my computer room, I looked up and saw this head. The camera was on my desk, so, yes! – I got a picture. Then I just kept taking pictures – over a hundred – for the next five minutes or so. Never the like. It let me. A juvenile Red-shouldered hawk was perched on a deck gate about three feet from my window. Cooper’s hawks always flee within thirty feet or more if it knows it’s seen. Red-shouldered hawks seem more tolerant. It was hunting – looking in every direction for prey – above/below/behind, etc. Not a squirrel or bird for that matter anywhere around. But it also studied me and, surprisingly, slowly scanned the room. We both studied each other, trying for a next step we didn’t find. Serendipity nonetheless.
March 2, 2015
Categories: Predatory birds
Comments
One comment on “Participant Photo: Juvenile Red-shouldered Hawk Up Close”
These photos show a juvenile Cooper’s Hawk (Astur cooperii), not a juvenile Red-shouldered Hawk (Buteo lineatus).
Red-shouldered Hawks are similar in plumage coloration, but have a characteristic checkering pattern on the secondaries that this bird does not have. Buteos such as Red-shouldered Hawks are much stockier in build compared to the slimmer, more lightweight and slender accipitrine structure of this bird. Importantly, Red-shouldered Hawks have brown irises at all ages, not the pale yellow of this bird’s iris.