Nature Done Wright

Earlier this week, I wrote:

I took this photo of this large young hawk at the Celery Farm on Tuesday around noon.

At first I thought young Red-tail but never got a good look at the chest and now I wonder….

Rosemarie Widmer confirmed my uncertainty — she believes it's a young Red-shoulder. Other birders agree.

If that's the case, the bird may well be the juvenile that fledged earlier this year in Allendale — that I named after Stiles Thomas.

Curiously, when I ran the photo through my Merlin Bird I.D. app, it said the bird was either a Red-tail, a Red-shoulder.

By the way, I took a similar shot of a young Red-shoulder in a nearby locale many Septembers ago. It was eating a baby Snaping Turtle. Photo below.