File:The birds of America - from drawings made in the United States and their territories (1840) (14562221739).jpg

Identifier: birdsofamericafr01audu (find matches)
Title: The birds of America : from drawings made in the United States and their territories
Year: 1840 (1840s)
Authors: Audubon, John James, 1785-1851 Bowen, John T., ca. 1801-1856?, lithographer
Subjects: Birds Birds
Publisher: New York : Published by J.J. Audubon Philadelphia : J.B. Chevalier
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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Text Appearing Before Image:
lcon usually makes its appearance from the north, atthe approach of every autumn, and is of more common occurrence. Ken-tucky, Tennessee, and other Western States, with the most Southern Dis-tricts of our Lnion, are apparently best adapted for the constant residence ofthe Red-shouldered Hawk, as in all these latter districts it is met with ingreater numbers than in any other. This bird is one of the most noisy of its genus, during spring especially,when it would be difficult to approach the skirts of woods bordering a largeplantation without hearing its discordant shrill notes, ka-hee, ka-hee, as it isseen sailing in rapid circles at a very great elevation. Its ordinary flight iseven and protracted, excepting when it is describing the circles just mention-ed, when it often dives and gambols. It is a more general inhabitant of thewoods than most of our other species, particularly during the summer, andin autumn and winter; now and then only, in early spring, shewing itself in N°E PI 9
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• ^/<t/ j//cu/s/<~/r</:yS/;:U7i// ...nirc bv J J Audubon KK • RED-SHOULDERED BUZZARD. 41 the open grounds, and about the vicinity of small lakes, for the purpose ofsecuring Red-winged Starlings and wounded Ducks. The interior of woods seems, as I have said, the fittest haunts for the Red-shouldered Hawk. He sails through them a few yards above the ground,and suddenly alights on the low branch of a tree, or the top of a dead stump,from which he silently watches, in an erect posture, for the appearance ofsquirrels, upon which he pounces directly and kills them in an instant, after-wards devouring them on the ground. If accidentally discovered, he essaysto remove the squirrel, but finding this difficult, he drags it partly throughthe air and partly along the ground, to some short distance, until he con-ceives himself out of sight of the intruder, when he again commences feeding.The eating of a whole squirrel, which this bird often devours at one meal, sogorges it, that I hav

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