About five or six years ago, we noticed the Red-Shoulders in the woods
behind our house in town which has a creek. That was my first time ever
with this hawk. There was a big stir when I mentioned they were going back
and forth to a nest because it was the first record of a nesting pair in
Marion County. I got up one morning to see five or six birders from
Wichita at the edge of my yard scouting them out although when I mentioned
we've had Pileateds occasionally coming to the suet feeder they're focus
changed a bit. Lol.
Since that first year we have them calling constantly and watch them swoop
in to join each other. They're LOUD. When I first heard them I thought I
had a weird crow initially. So when this Blue Jay went to town outside my
home office window, I thought red-shouldered...but off. Cats did too.
Lol. The clincher was my son coming down saying "Did you hear that
red-shouldered right outside?"
The red-shoulders are nice but I'd really like to head out to find Bob's
painted buntings in Johnson County. We had one female painted bunting
years ago but none since.
Lloyd Davies
Marion, Kansas
On Mon, Jun 9, 2025 at 10:38 AM Mark Mayfield <markherb...> wrote:
> Dan and Lloyd,
>
> My father—who was my "Merlin"—and I frequently debated the identity of a
> “red-shouldered” call when we heard it (this was in Tennessee). We didn’t
> have Merlin to back us up! I’ll never forget the feeling of realizing how
> good he was when he first responded to one of my excited exclamations
> identifying a RS Hawk by simply saying: “Oh, that was a Blue Jay.”
> Afterwards, I spent some time looking for all such calls until I felt I
> could confidently identify them. I don’t think I need Merlin to distinguish
> the two, but I'm not sure I would agree with it if we disagreed anyway!
>
> Mark Mayfield
> Manhattan KS
>
> Mark H Mayfield
> Division of Biology
> Kansas State University
> ________________________________
> From: Birds & Their Habitats in Kansas <KSBIRD-L...> on
> behalf of Dan Thalmann <editor...>
> Sent: Saturday, June 7, 2025 9:11:43 PM
> To: <ksbird-l...> <ksbird-l...>
> Subject: Re: Red-Shouldered Mimic
>
> This email originated from outside of K-State.
>
>
> Maybe about 10 days ago I had the Merlin app open and listening to birds
> in my backyard and a Blue Jay did such a convincing red-tail call that
> Merlin immediately identified it as a red-tail!
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> -Dan Thalmann
>
> Owner/Publisher, Washington County News
> Owner, Backroads News& Media
>
> (C) 785-747-6980 - text me
> (W) 785-325-2219
>
> > On Jun 6, 2025, at 7:48 AM, Lloyd Davies <ldavies...> wrote:
> >
> > Wow. We have had red-shouldered hawks nesting in the back woods for
> > several years and they call all the time. Just now I had what I thought
> > was was one right outside my home office window on the platform feeder:
> it
> > was a blue jay, doing a perfect red-shouldered call. He called and
> called
> > (cats were a bit startled) and then flew into the woods and did a few
> more
> > times. My son came down getting ready for work and said "Hey, just
> heard a
> > red-shouldered outside the window."
> >
> > Some bird.
> >
> > Lloyd Davies
> > Marion, Kansas
> >
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