A Red-Shouldered Hawk Gives a Flourish
Carol Fryer's encounter with a raptor at takeoff.
This beautiful raptor's red breast,聽barred black wings, and namesake ruddy shoulders often make it difficult to distinguish from its cousin, the Red-tailed, which sometimes preys on the smaller Red-shouldered. The hawk also has a fairweather relationship with the American Crow:聽Though the crow sometimes mobs the hawk, a common corvid aggression behavior, at other times the two have been observed to聽join forces to drive their mutual enemy, the Great Horned Owl, from the hawk鈥檚 territory. Though the Red-shouldered is a聽species of least concern鈥攑opulations can be found in woodland areas across many聽parts of Mexico and the US鈥攊t聽is vulnerable to habitat destruction from forest clearing聽and pesticides.
This image was a Top 100 photo from the 2011 探花精选 Magazine Photography Awards. To see all of the photos, .