The juvenile red-shouldered hawk that I saw up close and personal three weeks ago has apparently made itself at home in the small grove of a half dozen pine trees that cover the hill below our yard.
Usually it’s either flying around or it goes up into the canopy higher up in these trees, but sometimes it will come down into the open on the lower branches. Whether sitting or flying, it’s become quite vocal and loud, leaving no doubt of its species.
While it was sitting up there a trio of ducks flew by. I could hear them quite a ways off – and so could the hawk. I saw them coming up from the canyon off on the left and doing a big “bananna pass” (an airshow term, but it applies here) right over our heads. I noticed that the hawk was watching them intently…like, you know…a hawk! I could see the little thought bubble over its head. “I’m small now, but give me a year or so! Thems are good eatin’!”
In the meantime, if it wants to keep well fed and grow up big and strong, this is a good area. (No doubt the reason we have other red-shouldered hawks, Coopers hawks, night hawks, and red-tailed hawks in abundance.) There are plenty of squirrels, rabbits, skunks, raccoons, and other small critters to feast on, not to mention the mourning doves and twenty or thirty other types of birds. And lizards.
I don’t mind most of those critters, but we get the odd rat in the yard from the ivy that the neighbors love to have growing all over their fences. If our hawk pal wants to feast on rats, he’ll have my undying support.
We Love The Stars Too Fondly 