![\"red-shouldered](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/red-shouldered-hawk-0255-ron-dudley.jpg\")
<\/p>\nMy daughter Shannon lives in Florida and a few days ago she and her husband Rick\u00a0had an exciting encounter with what I believe to be a juvenile Red-shouldered Hawk.<\/p>\n
Their swimming pool is screen-enclosed but they\u00a0occasionally leave the door open so their dogs have access to the back yard to do their “duty”. When one of the dogs started barking excitedly they came out to investigate and found this hawk floundering in the pool.<\/p>\n
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Image used by permission<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Rick had the presence of mind to grab the pool net and lift the waterlogged bird out of the water\u00a0as Shannon took a couple of quick photos.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Image used by permission<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n The hawk was apparently uninjured but obviously terribly frightened and drenched. They carefully placed the bird on the grass outside the pool area.\u00a0It was so water-laden that it couldn’t fly at first but eventually, after shaking off much of its water load, the hawk was able to fly off.<\/p>\n Shannon told me that she had the distinct, almost overpowering feeling that this hawk knew <\/em>that they were trying to help it. I find that interesting because Shannon reads animals very well.<\/p>\n I have no experience with Red-shouldered Hawks but Mia tells me (she used to live in Florida) that the juveniles of the species are exceptionally curious and that may be how the bird ended up in the pool enclosure.<\/p>\n Shannon has the biggest, softest heart I know of so she’d have been devastated if this\u00a0hawk\u00a0had been injured or killed. I’m happy for both the\u00a0bird and my daughter that it lives to hunt again.<\/p>\n Ron<\/p>\n Note: Later this morning we leave on our first Montana camping trip of the season. Internet access up there is poor to nonexistent so I won’t be commenting much if at all but I should be able to get your comment emails when I have phone service. I’ll attempt to post from the road\u00a0occasionally but those posts will likely be brief. This is the earliest (by far) in\u00a0the season we’ve made this trip so we have no idea if we’ll find birds in any numbers or not and the weather forecast looks a little iffy.\u00a0Wish us luck.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" My daughter Shannon lives in Florida and a few days ago she and her husband Rick had an exciting encounter with what I believe to be a juvenile Red-shouldered Hawk.<\/p>\n![\"red-shouldered](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/red-shouldered-hawk-0256-ron-dudley.jpg\")
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