Uncommon Raptors of Colorado: Red-Shouldered Hawk

Adult hawks have rust colored patches on the wrist and upper back that give the appearance of red shoulders.
Video: Red-Shouldered Hawk

In this video, Anne Price, president of the Raptor Education Foundation, gives a presentation about the Red-Shouldered Hawk. Rarely seen in Colorado, the Red-shouldered Hawks are medium-sized, slightly smaller than the red-tailed hawk, with broad, rounded wings and medium-length tails that they fan out when soaring. Adult hawks have rust colored patches on the wrist and upper back that give the appearance of red shoulders. Found in forested areas, where they will hunt from perches. 

The bird pictured in this video came to Raptor Education Foundation from the Carolina Raptor Center. He was admitted to Carolina Raptor Center in June 2015 with a dislocated left ulna and a fracture of the proximal radius.  Apparently he was found on the ground and was still being fed by his parents; his crop was full of June bugs when he arrived at the center. His wing was wrapped, and both the dislocation and fracture resolved and healed nicely. However, sometime during August, while loose in a pre-release flight pen, he managed to break off his left hallux talon, along with the bony core, right down to the skin. Because he was admitted as such a young bird, and probably never caught anything more than an insect on his own, CRC deemed the loss of the entire hallux as a severe enough injury to render him unreleasable.

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