Red-Shouldered Hawk

red shouldered hawk
Red-shouldered hawk. Photo by Aaron Doucett on Unsplash

Appearance: Red-shouldered hawks are large birds of prey about 17-24″ in length with broad, brownish-red shoulders (wings) and breasts, round heads with a curved beaks, dark eyes, and black tails with white stripes. The female looks the same.

Diet: Small mammals, amphibians, reptiles, birds.

Feeder food: They don’t dine on feeder food.

Habitat: Wooded areas with deciduous trees and often streamsides and swamps.

Nesting: Nests are built high in a tree (40+ feet high) located in the fork of branches or beside the trunk. They have 1 brood/year, 3-4 eggs/brood and eggs are bluish-white with spots. Incubation lasts about 33 days.

Migration: The major of red-shouldered hawks remain in their year-round range, however, some do migrate. In the spring, some migrate north to the northern and eastern parts of the US as well as southern Ontario. Then in the fall, the migrants return south.
Year-round range: Oregon and California’s pacific coast, Eastern Nebraska, Oklahoma, Texas, and the US states eastward.
Winter range: Southern Texas and Mexico.
Breeding range: Central Minnesota, Northern Wisconsin, upper peninsula Michigan, northern Michigan, western Pennsylvania, New York, New England, and southern Ontario.

Range Map

Red-shouldered hawk range map. Compliments of The Cornell Lab.