Pair of Red-shouldered Hawks

[D Mellinger]

This morning I heard a pair of 

Red-shouldered Hawks calling from trees near Woodland Meadows Park (the Corl House park) in Corvallis. It's relatively uncommon to hear them here - typically it happens once or twice a year- but I almost never hear pairs. But there they were, making quite a racket calling together. 

I was surprised there was a pair at this time of year. Do pairs stick together through the non-breeding season? Given that I haven't heard them much this year, I don't think they have a nest nearby (and I'd guess our nesting Red-tails would have driven them off), so I'm puzzled why there would be a pair here now. 

Dave

[nsto...@gmail.com]

Dave--

Sorry to be slow to respond--I didn't see your post until just now. In recent years, a pair of Red-shouldered Hawks nested (successfully) along the creek upstream from Bessie Coleman Elementary School on NW Walnut Drive, just over the hill (as the hawk flies) from Woodland Meadows Park. They didn't nest in the same tree this year, but my hunch is they were somewhere nearby. I saw a pair of adults on a few occasions on the northwest side of the hill earlier this summer. Are you sure both birds you heard were adults? Juveniles are quite vocal after they leave the nest, begging to get fed by their parents for quite a while after they fledge, and I suspect they continue to be quite vocal long after the adults have quit feeding them. At Snag Boat Bend south of Peoria recently (Linn County), I heard and then saw 2 juvenile Red-shouldered Hawks screaming and circling low over a cottonwood grove where at least one of the birds eventually landed. I never saw an adult Red-shouldered that day, but one may have been out-of-sight in the cottonwoods, or perhaps the young birds were starting to disperse from their natal territory together, and were just screaming at each other cuz that's what teenagers do!

Nancy Stotz