Community Lens for Aug. 10

Rob DeMarco took this photo at his home on Lake Dow. Another reader recently sent a photo of what he thought was a red-shouldered hawk. A program manager from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology contacted the AJC to let us know that it was, in fact, a red-tailed hawk. According to Robert Sargent, red-shouldered hawk has reddish bars on its breast and belly and a banded tail. In contrast, adult red-tailed hawks usually feature a large patch of dark streaks (vertical dashes) below a whitish upper breast, and a reddish tail (upper-side). Red-tailed hawks are larger than red-shouldered hawks, and prefer to hunt over open fields whereas the latter species mostly inhabits woody areas and margins of forests. Red-tailed hawks emit a “cheeeeeew” call, which is often featured in movie soundtracks, even when the bird flying across the movie screen is a bald eagle! The red-shouldered hawk’s call sounds like “keerya, keerya, keerya.”