Red-Shouldered Hawk

Fascinating facts about the Red-Shouldered Hawk

• A red-shouldered hawk's call is so loud and distinctive that experienced birders use it to find the bird before they ever see it—a two-note whistle that carries through dense forest like a siren. Most raptors are silent hunters, but this hawk broadcasts its presence constantly, especially near its nest, a choice that makes it one of the easiest hawks in North America to locate by ear alone.
• Red-shouldered hawks are ambush predators that hunt from perches just 3 to 10 metres above the ground, waiting for frogs and small mammals to move. When they strike, they drop vertically at speeds up to 60 km/h and snatch prey in under a second—a hunting style perfectly suited to the wetlands and swampy forests where they live, where stealth matters more than open-sky speed.
• These hawks mate for life and return to the same nest year after year, adding new sticks each spring until some nests are the size of a large laundry basket and weigh over 45 kilograms. A pair might use the same tree for two decades, creating a living monument to one marriage in the forest canopy.
• In the 1950s and 1960s, pesticide poisoning wiped out red-shouldered hawks across much of their range—their eggshells became so thin they cracked under the weight of incubating parents. Since DDT was banned in 1972, populations have rebounded so dramatically that the species no longer qualifies as threatened, a textbook example of how one chemical regulation can resurrect an entire regional population.
• Red-shouldered hawks are almost never found alone in their territories and are fiercely vocal year-round, even in winter, maintaining an audio border with neighboring hawks through daily calling sessions. This constant territorial dialogue means the same hawk might scream hundreds of times each day—a behaviour that sets them apart from most raptors, which are silent outsiders in the forest.

At a glance

About the Red-Shouldered Hawk

As the sun rises over the verdant wetlands, a majestic Red-Shouldered Hawk stretches its wings, its slate-gray feathers glistening with dew, before taking to the skies with a fluid, effortless motion. With a piercing cry, it soars through the misty dawn air, its sharp eyes scanning the landscape below for the slightest movement of its prey, its agility and stealth a testament to its status as a master hunter. In this realm of cypress swamps and mangrove forests, the Red-Shouldered Hawk reigns supreme, its elegant form a symbol of wild beauty and resilience.

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