A Red-Shouldered Hawk Gives a Flourish
Carol Fryer's encounter with a raptor at takeoff.
This beautiful raptor's red breast, 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: Though the crow sometimes mobs the hawk, a common corvid aggression behavior, at other times the two have been observed to join forces to drive their mutual enemy, the Great Horned Owl, from the hawk鈥檚 territory. Though the Red-shouldered is a species of least concern鈥攑opulations can be found in woodland areas across many parts of Mexico and the US鈥攊t is vulnerable to habitat destruction from forest clearing 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, .