Red-shouldered Hawk at LNWR
Red-shouldered Hawk at Loxahatchee Wildlife Refuge.
This hawk was perched in a bush less than four feet from an American crow.
Here they are flying off together.
The crow and the Red-shouldered have a sometimes mutually-beneficial relationship. This is from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology: “Although the American Crow often mobs the Red-shouldered Hawk, sometimes the relationship is not so one-sided. They may chase each other and try to steal food from each other. They may also both attack a Great Horned Owl and join forces to chase the owl out of the hawk’s territory.”
Below is another photo of the Red-shouldered Hawk a few minutes earlier. This hawk appears to have the paler coloring of the Florida subspecies. The head and breast markings of the Florida subspecies, Buteo lineatus extimus and Buteo lineatus alleni, are slightly paler than other Red-shouldered hawks.
