This is my hawk that came to live in my yard (and I live in Mendocino County). She lives in a large oak, and she knows we have dogs here, so it might be part of her strategy. We have had a lot of songbirds and quail here for many years, so she has plenty to hunt and eat, and we saw her get a bird just 30 feet from the back door once, close enough to see the poor thing flop. We have a lot open wooded space near our house, although we are in the city limits.

I haven't come up with a name for the hawk yet, but she has been here two years now, Spring of 1998 and 1999. As you can see, she has a peach coloured breast, and a striped tail (she is fluffing up on her nest and fanning her tail in one shot). She has speckled wings (dark with white speckles), but this scanner did not pick that up off the photos. She is definately a Red-Shouldered Hawk,and they are said to live on frogs and swamp critters. (we live in a forested area).

Her nest looks like a small eagle nest, I did not see her start it. She may have found an old abandoned nest and improved on it, and I did see her adding twigs. From what I understand about raptors, the pair does not bond to each other, they both bond to the nest! So as I said, I hope she comes back next year.

From what I could tell, she was yelling for a mate to show up (KE-aaah!), but one never did. (I did see one in Ukiah, but it was too far away I'm sure). Her calls were much different from the Goshawks next door in the lodge pole pine, and she made soft clucking noises too, yes like a sitting hen. These shots were the only decent ones I could get, she usually flew off when I came out and pointed a bit telescopic at her...and she was WAY up in the tree, hard to get a good shot.

My fave shot is this one (a bit grainy but says a lot)...she is looking back down at me, cocking her head, obviously has good eyesight. As I recall, I made clucking noises myself, hoping to sooth her into setting a spell. I like to think she got used to me and considered me a friend.

She definately had a hard time with the crows and the Goshawks raiding her nest when she was not there (I assume there were no eggs as she was alone, and did not guard the nest much). Hawks definately cannot single parent it, they have too many enemies out there. Their obvious strategy is for one to set on the nest, and the other to distract the enemies, I saw the Goshawks do it all the time.