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Red-Shouldered Hawk North Carolina Wildlife Profiles

Author: Buteo Lineatus
Red-shouldered Hawk
Publication venue
Publication date: 04/09/2014
Field of study

The red-shouldered hawk is a fairly common raptor in North Carolina. While most people cannot identify this hawk by sight, many are familiar with its twopart call. The blue jay often imitates the red-shoulder’s scream, “kee-ah kee-ah.” This handsome bird of prey can live in towns and suburbs, or in its favorite habitat—mature woods along streams and rivers and in swamps. Such wooded zones support the hawk’s prey, but development has caused habitat to decline. Description The red-shouldered hawk is a type of hawk known as a “buteo. ” Buteos have broad wings and wide tails that are usually banded. Like other buteos, the redshouldered hawk likes to soar, but it flaps its wings more than the red-tailed hawk. In direct flight it beats its wings several times and then glides. The redshouldered hawk is a medium-sized hawk, smaller than the red-tailed hawk and larger than the broad-winged hawk. Adult red-shouldered hawks have a reddish, barred belly. One usually sees the red shoulders only when the bird perches nearby. Better field marks are the strongly barred black-and-white tail and upper wing feathers. This barring in the wing produces a translucent or light patch near the tip of the underwing. The male and female have similar plumage, but the female is noticeably larger than the male. History and Status Populations of red-shouldered hawks were once much larger in North Carolina than they are today. At one time, these hawks outnumbered the larger red-tailed hawk that prefers open lands mixed with woods. Red-shouldered hawks still breed throughout the state along wooded rivers. Bird-watchers are more likely to see these hawks during migration and in winter than during the breeding season. A pair of red-shouldered hawks wheeling and calling over a creek bottom is an unforgettable portrait of sight and sound. Range and Distribution The red-shouldered hawk occurs throughout the eastern United States, west to the eastern edge of the Great Plains. It also lives in southern Canada, northeastern Mexico and in western California. The red-shouldered hawk nests, overwinters, and migrates throughout North Carolina. It is most common in those counties with abundant bottomland and swamp forests. For this reason, the red-shouldered hawk is most common in the eastern part of the state, but may also be found along the larger rivers in our mountains

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