Checking out the neighborhood

I spotted this Red-Shouldered Hawk surveying his surroundings from a perch on a bare tree this morning. Red-Shouldered Hawks are monogamous, solitary nesters, and return to the same nesting spot year after year, sometimes generation after generation.

The Hawk’s average life span is less than 5 years, but “the oldest-known Red-shouldered hawk was at least 22 years, 5 months old. It was banded in Florida in 1989, and found dead in Florida in 2009, the victim of an attack by another raptor.” This info and much more about Red-Shouldered Hawks can be found at All About Birds.

Lots of tasty prey make our preserve an excellent habitat if you’re a Red-Shouldered Hawk, with its many ponds, marshes, cypress stands, and open grassy areas. But, this fellow wasn’t hunting at the moment . . . Apparently satisfied with how the neighborhood looks, he took off back to his nest in the trees.

See and listen to more at Red-shouldered Hawk – One Gorgeous Bird of Prey from BirdNote!

8 thoughts on “Checking out the neighborhood”

They are a beautiful bird. Five years is such a short time, hardships must be plenty. Wonderful photos as always.

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Birder's Journey says:

December 28, 2015 at 2:02 pm

Thank you, Donna. I read in All about Birds that “The biggest threat to Red-shouldered Hawks is continued clearing of their wooded habitat. . . “

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