Red-shouldered hawk

The red-shouldered hawk (Buteo lineatus) is a medium-sized buteo. Its breeding range spans eastern North America and along the coast of California and northern to northeastern-central Mexico. It is a permanent resident throughout most of its range, though northern birds do migrate, mostly to central Mexico. The main conservation threat to the widespread species is deforestation. The red-shouldered hawk was formally described in 1788 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae. He placed it with the eagles, hawks and relatives in the genus Falco and coined the binomial name Falco lineatus. Gmelin based his account on the "barred-breasted buzzard" of John Latham and the "red shouldered falcon" of Thomas Pennant. Latham had described a preserved specimen from North America in the Leverian collection while Pennant's specimen formed part of the collection of Anna Blackburne and had come from Long Island. The red-shouldered hawk is now placed with 27 other species in the genus Buteo that was introduced in 1799 by Bernard Germain de Lacépède. The genus name Buteo is Latin for a "buzzard". The specific epithet lineatus is Latin meaning "marked with lines" or "lined". Five subspecies are recognised: B. l. lineatus (Gmelin, 1788) – east North America B. l. alleni Ridgway, 1885 – central south Texas to North Carolina and north Florida (USA) B. l. extimus Bangs, 1920 – south Florida and the Florida Keys (USA) B. l. texanus Bishop, 1912 – south Texas (USA) to southeast Mexico B. l. elegans Cassin, 1855 – south Oregon (USA) to Baja California (Mexico) Males are long and weigh on average . Females are slightly larger at in length and a mean weight of . The wingspan can range from . Adult birds can vary in mass from . Among standard measurements, the wing bone is long, the tail is long and the tarsus is . Adults have brownish heads, reddish chests, and pale bellies with reddish bars. Their tails, which are quite long by Buteo standards, are marked with narrow white bars.