March 9, 2018

Location: Satellite Beach, Samson's Island

I'm known as a Red-shouldered Hawk,
I'm much harder to ID from the back
The other most likely bird would be Coopers Hawk
And here’s how we know the it’s not that:

Let’s zero in on the tail here -
It’s about half the length of his body
If this were a Coop’s the tail would be longer,
About the full length of his body.

(Sorry to rhyme "body" with "body" - I know that goes against the rules of poetry, but I had to go for scientific accuracy here as telling hawks apart is quite difficult.)

Sources: Interview with David Simpson.


Photo and text © 2018 Dee Fairbanks Simpson