Red-shouldered Hawk Identification: Adult, Juvenile, Call

• Wing patch (speculum): In flight shows a pale crescent (translucent window) near the wingtip
• Tail: Narrow black-and-white bands on the flight feathers of the wings and tail; juvenile eastern birds show narrower tail bars
• Body pattern: Adult shows reddish shoulders and chest; West Coast birds are redder, Florida birds paler and grayer-headed, eastern juveniles browner
• Flight silhouette: Often flies with several quick flaps and a glide, a wingbeat pattern suggesting the accipiters
• Size compared with look-alikes: Larger than Broad-winged Hawk, with longer wings and tail

Red-shouldered Hawk is larger than Broad-winged Hawk, with longer wings and tail, and shows narrow black-and-white bands on the flight feathers plus a pale wingtip crescent that Broad-winged Hawk lacks The Broad-winged Hawk page lists its own marks.

Bottomland woods, wooded streamsides, and swamps in the east; riverside forest or oak woodland, sometimes eucalyptus groves, in the west Found across California, Eastern Canada, Florida, Great Lakes, Mid-Atlantic, New England, Northwest, Plains, Southeast, Southwest, and Texas

Often flies with several quick flaps and a glide, a wingbeat pattern that suggests the accipiters rather than typical buteo soaring

Raptors are usually far away and against the sky, so expose for the bird, not the sky, and take several frames as it turns: the tail shape, wing shape and underwing pattern show best in flight. For a perched bird, get the head and chest in one frame. Size is hard to judge alone; compare with a nearby crow, gull or fence post. The app names the likely species; confirm with the marks above.

Identify a Red-shouldered Hawk by its checkered black-and-white wings, a pale crescent near each wingtip in flight, narrow white bands on a long dark tail, and, on adults, reddish shoulders and a reddish barred chest. Audubon gives 16-24 in long with a wingspan of about 3 ft 4 in; Wikipedia gives 90-127 cm (35-50 in) for the wingspan, with males averaging about 550 g and females about 700 g. The tail is long for a buteo (Wikipedia), and the flight is often several quick flaps and a glide, which is why people mistake it for an accipiter.

Young birds lack the red. Wikipedia separates juveniles from similar hawks by their long tails, the crescent-shaped wing windows and a flappier, accipiter-like flight; Audubon notes eastern juveniles are browner with narrower tail bars.

The species also looks different by region. Wikipedia recognizes five subspecies from eastern North America to Baja California. Audubon describes West Coast birds as redder and Florida birds as paler and grayer-headed, so a pale, washed-out Red-shouldered Hawk in Florida is normal, and a very rich red one in California is too.

These two get confused because both flap and glide through wooded neighborhoods and both can have reddish underparts. The differences, from Audubon's accounts:

• Upperparts: an adult Cooper's Hawk is plain blue-gray above with a dark cap; an adult Red-shouldered Hawk has checkered black-and-white wings and reddish shoulders.
• Tail: Cooper's has a rounded tail with a wide white tip; Red-shouldered has a dark tail crossed by several narrow white bands.
• Wingtips: Red-shouldered shows a pale crescent near each wingtip in flight; Cooper's does not.
• Size: Cooper's females are 17-18 in and males 15-16 in; Red-shouldered is 16-24 in and bulkier, with broader wings.
• Juveniles: young Cooper's are brown above with sharp dark streaks on a white chest, much like young Red-shouldered, so use the tail bands and wingtip crescents.
• Hunting: Cooper's mostly takes birds such as robins and jays, often at feeders; Red-shouldered hunts voles, chipmunks, frogs, snakes and crayfish from a perch near water.

The Red-shouldered Hawk is one of the noisiest hawks. Audubon describes a shrill scream, kee-yeeear, with a downward inflection, and Wikipedia says the kee-aah call is usually repeated three to four times while courting or defending territory. The catch: Audubon notes Blue Jays often imitate this call almost perfectly. If you hear the scream and see a Blue Jay rather than a hawk, that is probably the source. A real Red-shouldered Hawk usually repeats the call in a series and is often perched along a wooded stream.

Audubon estimates about 1.9 million Red-shouldered Hawks and lists the species as Least Concern, with populations thought stable in most regions after historical declines in the upper Midwest and along the Atlantic Coast. They are birds of bottomland woods, wooded streamsides and swamps in the East, riverside forest and oak woodland in the West, and pine woods and mangroves in Florida.

Nesting details from Audubon: nests 35-65 ft up, usually 3-4 eggs, about 33 days of incubation by the female, young leaving the nest at about 5-7 weeks and fed by the parents for another 8-10 weeks. Wikipedia notes they can nest within 48 m (157 ft) of a Barred Owl without conflict, and that one bird lived to within a month of 20 years, though few live half that long.

Red-shouldered Hawks are territorial and loud, but they are small for a buteo. Wikipedia gives average weights of about 550 g for males and 700 g for females, and lists their largest prey as birds up to the size of a Ruffed Grouse or Ring-necked Pheasant; their usual prey is voles, mice and other small rodents. None of the sources on this page describe them taking dogs. Supervise very small pets outdoors around any raptor, but a Red-shouldered Hawk's normal food is far smaller than a dog.

Their aggression is mostly directed at other predators and rivals: they call repeatedly to defend territory and, per Wikipedia, cooperate with American Crows against Great Horned Owls.