INSULAR RED-SHOULDERED HAWK 209 



During the winter and spring of 1930, I climbed to and examined 

 six nests of this little hawk and saw a number of others. On January 

 23 we saw the hawks building their nest in an unusual situation in 

 a small clump of buttonwoods and other small trees and bushes in 

 the Everglades. The site chosen was only 10 feet above the ground 

 in the leafy top of a small button wood where the top of another 

 fallen tree rested against it. The nest was so well concealed that I 

 was not sure that it was a nest until I looked into it. It was made 

 of sticks, weeds, and grasses and lined with green leaves from the 

 surrounding trees. On January 31 this nest contained one very 

 pretty egg, but when I visited it again, on February 10, it was empty 

 and deserted. 



The southern part of the Everglades is dotted with small mottes, 

 or islands, an acre or two in area, of small or medium-sized cypresses, 

 growing in water a foot or so in depth. These were favorite nesting 

 sites for these hawks, and most of the many nests that we saw were 

 in such situations; early in the season, before the cypresses were in 

 full leaf, the nests were conspicuous at a long distance. A low nest 

 of this type, found on February 27, was only 15 feet above the water 

 on some horizontal branches of a small cypress on the very edge of 

 the motte. It was made of sticks and twigs of cypress and lined with 

 weed stems, strips of cypress bark, green twigs, and green leaves; it 

 was profusely decorated with white down and contained three eggs; 

 it measured 24 inches in outside and Y inches in inside diameter, the 

 inner cavity being 2 inches deep. Other nests were well within the 

 mottes and higher up, 20 to 30 feet, in larger cypresses, but generally 

 in plain sight. Once, while I was watching a nest on which I could 

 see the head of the incubating bird, I heard a hawk scream and saw 

 it come sailing along through the trees and alight on the edge of the 

 nest; the sitting bird, apparently the male, immediately arose and 

 flew away; the newcomer settled on the nest and began incubating. 

 I climbed to the nest and found only one egg; this was the second 

 nest on which we had found a hawk incubating on one egg, perhaps 

 for protection against crows. 



On January 31 I visited a nest that I had previously located in 

 some flat pine woods on a large island in the Everglades; the hawk 

 had flown from the nest when I rapped the tree and returned to it 

 within five minutes, while I sat in plain sight only 50 yards away; 

 and this time she swooped at me when I climbed the tree; two eggs 

 nearly ready to hatch might have made her unusually anxious; these 

 eggs must have been laid very early in January. The nest was at 

 least 45 feet from the ground in a slender Caribbean pine; it was 

 made of pine twigs and grasses and lined with green and dry pine 

 needles; it measured 15 inches in diameter and 10 inches high and 

 was 4 inches deep inside. 



