Must not be too hungry only going after choice parts of the animals it is hunting ?
I few years ago I was giving a school tour 4th grade IIR, a hay ride through the woods. I saw what I first thought to be a turkey, and was going to point it out, but soon realized it was the hawk pictured, trying to fly away with a large fox squirrel, I chose not to make a deal of it
I hope you get the opportunity to see the hawk in action. Watching a raptor hunt and be successful is a real heart stopper for me.A few weeks ago I found a pair of bald eagles have setup nest keeping in the middle of a local train yard. This morning I received permission to come on the property on the weekends to document their nesting and hopefully the rearing of a couple of fledgling on film for the next few months.
Very unique situation there Tom! I was plinking in my back yard and heard a different birds singing in my neighbors tree so I glassed it with my scope and saw a small warbler sized bird with a white ring around each eye and the birds upper body was a pale green....googled it and found out it is a Japanese White Eye and there were only 2 flocks known to be in existence in the US...they have been coming thru my back yard for 2 years now...pretty unusual like your Red Shouldered Hawk sighting! We also had a Snowy Owl sighting in our County recently, they haven't been seen here ever. Times are a changing.....
That’s awesome Tom! I have a couple of different types of hawks around my yard as well. The red shouldered hawks here don’t even bother with squirrels. They chase mice and frogs. I’ve seen them catch squirrels but they are terrible at breaking them down. It’s actually kind of funny to watch. About two months ago I shot a grey squirrel and it was on the ground flipping around. A hawk that I hadn’t seen swooped in and stood on the squirrel until it stopped moving…noticed me and flew off. I love all types of birds but raptors are the best.
I happened to look up at the right time to watch eagle do their mating ritual, gracious their going to crash But no they let go at what seemed to be tree height or so
Great story and I like the pictures.I love predator birds - they're impressive.Recently I even saw a peregrine falcon hunting at a raven. But ravens are smart. So he managed to survive the attack.And we have sea eagles here too... they are huuuge...
A couple of tears back I shot a dove with the .25 Marauder up in a tree. It was fatally hit and it started it's descent to the ground kinda like an airplane going to crash. Out of nowhere a hawk came and swooped it up before it hit the ground about 40 yds. away.