Red-shouldered Hawk

Buteo lineatus · Raptors

Red-shouldered Hawk feeding

San Diego Botanic Garden, 7 March 2026

A Red-shouldered Hawk with prey in the bill in a San Diego garden in March. The Californian birds are a distinct race of an eastern woodland hawk, redder and more richly coloured, and far more at home in suburbs, where they nest in eucalyptus and call from lamp posts.

Red-shouldered Hawks hunt from a still perch rather than by soaring, watching the ground below for the lizards, small mammals and large insects that make up most of the diet in a Californian garden.

Red-shouldered Hawk in eucalyptus

San Diego Botanic Garden, 7 March 2026

A Red-shouldered Hawk in a eucalyptus in a San Diego garden, calling. This is the hawk of Californian gardens and eucalyptus groves, a distinct western race of an eastern woodland bird, and far more at home in suburbs than its eastern cousin, which keeps to river bottoms and wet forest.

It is one of the more vocal hawks, calling persistently in flight, a clear, descending kee-yah repeated in series, often before it is anywhere in sight. The introduced eucalyptus isn't native habitat by any definition, but the hawk has taken to the tall, open-branched trees as readily as it would to a native oak.

Red-shouldered Hawk

Governors Island, 19 January 2026

A Red-shouldered Hawk on Governors Island in January, a woodland hawk of the river bottoms and wet forests of the East that has adapted well enough to city parks and islands that a sighting in New York harbour is no longer a surprise.

Finely barred rufous underparts and a warm shoulder patch just visible where the wing meets the body. The call is a loud, repeated "kee-yah", which Blue Jays imitate so well that half the calls in a park are jays.