Spot Red-Shouldered Hawk (Buteo lineatus)

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The Red-Shouldered Hawk is one of the most distinctively marked common hawks, with barred reddish-peachy underparts and a strongly banded tail. Diet and behavioral habits: Fairly common in Balboa Park, since the 1950’s, but more often heard than seen. One of the best ways to see Red-shouldered Hawks is to learn their distinctive whistle. Listen for these birds in and around trees and forests, where you may find them hunting from a perch, either within areas of dense trees, or in the open, swooping down when it locates prey. Sometimes they fly very low and fast, taking creatures by surprise. They may use hearing as well as sight to locate prey. The Red-Shouldered Hawk diet includes small mammals, amphibians, reptiles, and birds, but their diet varies with region and season. Main prey is often mammals such as voles and chipmunks, at other times frogs and toads, crayfish, snakes, mice, large insects, and occasionally fish. Nesting habits: Nest are built by both sexes, and is a platform of sticks and other material, lined with bark, moss, and sprigs of green vegetation. Nest may be reused for more than one season.

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