Rewilding My Lot

It is not unusual for me to see hawks flying overhead. However, until now I had never seen one land in the subdivision. I happened to be sitting in our front porch when I saw a Red-shouldered Hawk (Buteo lineatus) land on the roof of the next-door house.

I am still a novice when it comes to bird identification, so I needed help from friends and iNaturalist for that. I have seen red-shouldered hawks before, usually in a forest context and often with their distinctive “kee-rah” call which helps with identification. This one was silent.

The hawk sat for a few minutes. Several barn swallows swooped close to it, as if to chase it away (not successfully). And house finches seemed comfortable sitting nearby on the same rooftop (see below), so apparently they didn’t consider it a threat. Eventually it flew away, without making any effort to try to catch anything.

Here are some things I learned when I was reading about red-shouldered hawks:

• A red-shouldered hawk is 18-24 inches in length.
• Red-shouldered hawks are forest raptors, although they can be found in suburban settings where trees are nearby. That fits my location, although I am not immediately adjacent to mature trees.
• Red-shouldered hawks eat mostly small mammals, lizards, snakes, and amphibians. They also eat toads, snakes, and crayfish, and sometimes birds. Some of those could be available in this subdivision, but perhaps not at a sufficient density to make it a worthwhile hunting expedition.

I am extremely grateful to have a reasonable camera in my pocket at all times (my phone), but on occasions like these it would have been nice to have a better quality camera to capture details at a distance!