Red-shouldered Hawk on the Tuolumne River Parkway Trail

I haven't seen too many Red-shouldered Hawks (Buteo lineatus) of late. The last ones I got pictures of seem to have been in 2015, and the only one on the Tuolumne River Parkway Trail was a juvenile. So, maybe this is the same one, grown up now. I couldn't say. But it was a pleasant surprise to see it perched on the dead cottonwood tree below the water treatment plant.

The Red-shouldered Hawks have a strange distribution. They are common and widespread across the eastern United States and eastern Mexico, and then there is a broad swath across the Midwest, the Rocky Mountains, and Great Basin where they are almost never seen. And then in California, they are common. The separation has produce evolutionary changes, with four distinctive subspecies in the east, and one in the west.

The Red-shouldered Hawks are territorial, and unlike many in the east who migrate with the seasons, they remain in California year-round. That obviously means I need to pay better attention if I want to see this one again.

Juvenile Red-shouldered Hawk on the Tuolumne River

I'm looking forward to the completion of the Tuolumne Parkway Trail in Waterford. This new nature trail will follow the Tuolumne River for two miles where it flows from the Sierra Nevada into the Great Valley. I've been going out and back for months now on the trail route, but eventually a stairwell to the top of the bluffs will allow me to make a loop along the river.

This morning was a bit of an adventure, as we received nearly an inch of rain overnight, and the not-yet-surfaced trail was a bit of a mud track. I wasn't seeing many birds this morning, but at one spot overlooking the river I simply stopped and stood for awhile. Before long a variety of birds were fluttering into the shrubs around me. Most notably, up on the bluff a very large bird landed in a tree and started making a lot of noise.

I knew it was a hawk right away, but I couldn't identify it until later. It was a juvenile Red-shouldered Hawk (Buteo lineatus). I was confused, since it didn't have red shoulders yet, but it was certainly a beautiful bird. The Red-shouldered Hawks have a very unusual distribution, with a wide range in the eastern United States, and a narrow range along the Pacific coast, with no overlap in between.


I took a short video of the bird calling. It was in no hurry to leave, and maybe was actually telling me to leave instead. I've seen a couple of Red-shouldered Hawks in the area, including an adult a few days ago. I only got a few shots, but one can make out the orange-red color on the "shoulders" (epaulets?). A family group?

Bird of the Day: What the Ground Squirrel Was Worried About...

We decided to avoid some traffic by parking along Dry Creek in downtown Modesto as the sun was setting. While we were there, we saw a bit of drama, although it was of the nuanced type. There were lots of Ground Squirrels living on the stream bank adjacent to the creek, and they were noticeably nervous, pacing, standing, and not going more than a few feet from their burrows. I looked around to see what was upsetting them, and eventually noticed a branch in the distant oak tree that didn't look exactly like a branch. I whipped out the camera (which I use in place of binoculars) and figured out what they were worried about.

How would YOU feel if you were only eight inches tall and saw this in the trees above you?

The Red-shouldered Hawk (Buteo lineatus), as I've noted before, has a very strange distribution. They are widespread around the eastern United States from New England to Texas and into Mexico. Then there is a west coast population, confined to Alta and Baja California, although a few have been noted in Oregon and Arizona.

Dry Creek rises in the Sierra Nevada foothills south of Jamestown, and flows through central Modesto where it joins the Tuolumne River. Although it does not have a wide riparian forest, a string of majestic oak trees can be found along its course in the Great Valley, and I need to spend more time finding what birds live there.

Dry Creek is supposed to be dry as the name suggests, but during the summer season irrigation overflow tends to keep the channel wet. In winter it is prone to flash floods, as very little snow falls along its upper reaches, so water gathers quickly during storms. Last year the channel was dry throughout most of the winter season as we suffered the third year of drought.

Bird of the Day: Red-shouldered Hawks on Superbowl Sunday

More birds from an extraordinary day of bird-watching, last Superbowl Sunday. We decided to head out of town, and hadn't even made it to the bridge over the Tuolumne River when I spied a colorful looking hawk on a telephone pole. I don't see a lot of hawks inside the town limits, so I stopped and got a couple of pictures. It's a Red-shouldered Hawk (Buteo lineatus), a medium-sized raptor with a very strange distribution. They are widespread around the eastern United States from New England to Texas and into Mexico. Then there is a west coast population, confined to Alta and Baja California, although a few have been noted in Oregon and Arizona.

We continued down the road to the Bear Creek Unit of the San Luis National Wildlife Refuge near Los Banos, passing dozens of hawks on the highway, but at the refuge, there was another Red-shouldered Hawk posing for us. It turned out to be quite a day for raptors (except the ones from Seattle...)