82 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



upland or hilly country, leaving the swamps more exclusively to the Red- 

 shouldered hawk. 



Habits. This species is often seen in spring and summer, and again 

 in the fine days of autumn, sweeping in wide circles over the hills and 

 valleys, sometimes soaring upward until, with its broad wings and tail 

 spread, it disappears from sight in the upper air. These evolutions usually 

 occur over its native woods and hunting fields, and in spring are quite sure 

 to mark the neighborhood of its nesting site, when both sexes take part 

 in the performance and wheel about for hours almost out of sight. It 

 chooses a conspicuous perch on the dead top of a tree by the edge of the 

 forest or isolated in broad fields, to watch for its humble prey, and may 

 sit thus for hours apparently asleep, but really continuing a keen scrutiny 

 of its surroundings, and when it discovers a mouse, shrew, squirrel or bird 

 which offers a favorable chance, it swoops down and, gliding low, snatches 

 it up in its heavy talons and bears it away. At other times it may be seen 

 coursing back and forth over old fields and pastures searching for meadow 

 mice and grasshoppers. This hawk, though called " Hen hawk," rarely 

 visits the poultry yard, not more than one chicken being chargeable to 

 this species while ten go to the Cooper hawk and the Goshawk. It 

 captures a few cottontails and Ruffed grouse, but the majority of its food 

 consists of small mam.mals. " Of 562 stomachs, 54 contained poultry, 

 51 other birds, 409 mice and small mammals and 47 insects." (Fisher) 



The nest of the Red-tail is placed in the fork of a tall tree, a maple, 

 birch, beech, elm, basswood, hemlock or pine, 40 to 80 feet from the ground, 

 and is occupied year after year as long as the owners are not destroyed. 

 If one of the pair is killed, another mate is soon secured and brought back 

 to the long established site. If the eggs are taken, a new nest is built not 

 far from the old one, but the next spring the original nest is almost sure 

 to be occupied again. The birds pair and begin working on the nest early 

 in March, almost immediately after their arrival from the south. It is 

 a bulky structure composed of sticks and lined with small twigs and strips 

 of bark, and usually decorated with green hemlock sprays, fern leaves 



