Description
A red-shouldered hawk at Oaks Bottom, perched in low sun with the woods behind him dissolved into green and gold. Every field mark is on show: the warm rufous barring across the chest, the boldly checkered black-and-white wings, the pale crescents near the wingtips, and the heavy yellow feet gripping the limb.
The name is slightly unhelpful. The “red shoulder” is a patch of rufous on the upper wing that a perched bird usually keeps hidden — what you actually notice is that barred orange chest. He is a buteo, like the red-tailed hawk, but a slimmer and more elegant one, built for hunting from a perch over wet woodland rather than soaring over open fields. Frogs, snakes, crayfish, voles, the occasional small bird — anything that moves in a flooded wood.
Which makes Oaks Bottom close to ideal habitat, and makes this bird a genuinely notable Portland sighting. Red-shouldered hawks are recent arrivals here. Their historic range in the West ran through California, and over the last few decades they have pushed steadily north into Oregon and now Washington. This is a species in the middle of expanding, and you are watching it happen.
Two more things worth knowing. His call — a ringing, repeated kee-ah, kee-ah — is one of the most recognizable sounds in a wet forest, and it is also one of the most counterfeited: blue jays imitate it with real accuracy, apparently to clear other birds off a feeder. If you hear a red-shouldered hawk and find a jay, you have been had.
And he shares this wood with the barred owls elsewhere in this collection. The two species want the same flooded timber and much of the same prey, one working the day shift and one the night, and where their territories overlap they are known to harass each other at the boundary. The refuge is smaller than it looks.
This is a high-resolution digital download of the photograph, made at Oaks Bottom Wildlife Refuge in Portland, Oregon — yours to print for your home or office, set as a wallpaper, or simply keep.
What you’ll receive: a high-resolution JPEG, approximately 3456 × 2688 pixels — sharp enough to print at full photo quality up to about 11.5 × 9 inches at 300 DPI, and larger at normal wall viewing distances. Delivered as an instant download the moment your order is complete.
License: Personal use only. Print it for your own home, use it as a wallpaper or screen background, enjoy it yourself. Not licensed for commercial use, resale, redistribution, or AI training. © Jonathan Swanson / JonSwan Productions. All rights reserved.