Late yesterday afternoon, as we sat down for dinner on our back deck, I noticed a red-shouldered hawk in a magnolia tree, less than twenty feet away. He had begun dining before we did, a long, young snake dangling from his beak.
He was either unfazed by our presence or too engaged in his own meal to take notice. His prey continued to wriggle about for a few minutes before the raptor sucked it down like a strand of pasta. Once the meal settled in his stomach, the hawk flew down to our back fence, searching the ground for his next course.
Red-shouldered hawks are known to favor riparian woodlands, where they hunt from a perch for small mammals, songbirds, frogs, lizards and snakes. While our local buteo is always welcome to join us for dinner, we must insist that he bring his own meal.
