Tehachapi News

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I was walking through Phil Marx Central Park (City Park) two weeks ago taking photos of our town following a beautiful Tehachapi snowstorm. Amid the pale colors of a snow-covered park and the dull grays and browns of bare winter trees, something brighter attracted my attention.

Perched about 20 feet up in an elm tree was a Red-shouldered Hawk (Buteo lineatus), the morning sun illuminating its orange-barred chest. These hawks are related to Red-tailed Hawks (Buteo jamaicensis) but are smaller and differ in both appearance and behavior.

In addition to their distinctive orangish chest and underwings, red-shouldered hawks also have a lovely black-and-white paint scheme on their backs and upperwings, and in flight these feather markings give a lace-like, filigreed appearance to their plumage.

I looked at the hawk for a minute or two as he occasionally watched me, apparently with the park to ourselves as no one else was wandering in the snow at 7 a.m.

Then the bird showed some restlessness and looked to be about to fly, so I took a few photos of him. As he abruptly plunged off his perch, I followed him in flight through a 200mm lens. He dropped briefly and then sailed up past the veteran’s memorial flag pole and headed up into another tree.

As he landed, I said to myself “Whoa, it looks like there’s another one in that tree.” It was great to find one raptor perched in our little park — two was even better.

Within a couple of seconds, the first bird, which was slightly smaller, jumped into the air about 6 feet above the branch where both birds were perched and then floated down on top of the second bird.

Aha! So that’s what was going on: morning romance in old Tehachapi. It wasn’t the first time mating has occurred at City Park, but usually it has taken place on the grass, not up in the trees.

After a brief 10 seconds or so of coupling, the male hopped back off the receptive female and perched on a broken branch a few feet away. Then a raven flew low into the park and the male took offense, launching himself suddenly out of the tree and initiating an aerial dogfight with the raven, who opted to fly back out of the park.

I returned to the park a few days later to see one of the red-shouldered hawks, so I am hoping that they may choose to nest in our park, which was created in 1910 so is only a little shy of 100 years old.

Red-shouldered hawks are more typically found in marshy areas or wooded habitat near water, but they can adapt to different circumstances, and they are quite tolerant of human presence as long as mature trees and a high canopy are maintained — a pair nested for several years at the Mourning Cloak Ranch on Old Town Road, and they were unfazed by the steady stream of daily visitors coming to the Mourning Cloak.

Like other red-shoulders, the hawks at the Mourning Cloak were very vocal near their nest, loudly repeating their down-slurred keeyur keeyur keeyur territorial call. Pairs or offspring may continue to use the same nesting territory for many years.

Red-shouldered hawks are primarily rodent-eaters, though they will also take reptiles, amphibians and some birds. They generally prefer more wooded areas than red-tailed hawks, though they will hunt in more open areas.

It was great to see birds of prey (even uninhibited ones) in the heart of our 7-square-mile town. I hope that they’re comfortable enough to stick around.

Have a good week.