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When I was a kid, growing up in the back of a rather tight coulee, the sky was a lot smaller than it is today. At least my sky was.

The top of the hill behind the house where I grew up was over 1,300 feet above sea level, while the house is marked at just below 860 feet. And the elevation lines between them are pretty close together, telling anyone who cares that the land behind the house was far from flat. We definitely had to look up to see the sky.

Down in that valley, my family kept a few cows, a team of horses and some chickens. And it’s the chickens that are pertinent to this story.

It was customary those days to keep a rooster or two among the hens. Country folks those days liked to hear a rooster crow now and then, you see. It sort of broke the monotony of having to listen to the cackling of the hens all the time, even if the cackling was supposed to be the sound of contentment.

It must be remembered, too, that the rooster served as a sentinel, and, every so often, he would fulfill that duty for the flock. His warning call would hush the voices of all the hens in the vicinity. Sometimes it would cause a dash for shelter, too. All that it took was one shadow passing over the yard, and any large bird could produce that. Yet, there was also the two-toned whistle. The sound made by a particular hawk whenever it had young in the nest.

This call was an easy one to imitate. One high note quickly slurred upward. I always thought it could be rendered as “hi-EE,” with the second note higher. It was a pleasant call to my ear, but it struck terror among the chickens.

Everyone knew that the call was produced by a hawk, but no one during those innocent years had any idea that there was more than one species of soaring hawk circling those sunlit skies. Yet, all along, we had the red-tailed hawk that everyone knew and another one that nobody knew was there: the one with the two note whistle. It turned out to be the red-shouldered hawk, one that is seldom seen any more.

Red-shoulders are somewhat smaller than the red-tail, but the two are similar in general coloring. The “red” on both species is reddish-brown. Red-tails have the color over their entire tails once they mature. They are at home in woods everywhere in our area. Red-shoulders do have prominent spots on their shoulders and are darker colored underneath. They seem to prefer river bottom forest to uplands.

The hunting habits of both of these species indicate a preference for rodents as prey. Mice, rats, ground squirrels and young rabbits are their most likely sources of their food. These birds are soaring hawks and they don’t fly fast enough to catch birds on the wing. I have, however, seen this type of hawk carrying a snake while flying.

Many years have passed since I’ve heard the call of a red-shouldered hawk. I have occasionally seen one in flight, but it’s always near a river.

It’s been even longer since I’ve heard a rooster’s warning to the flock. And never along the trail.