Last week I made a stop on my way home from work to watch this red shouldered hawk (Buteo lineatus) hunt grasshoppers. I’ve seen this bird perched on the same fence that surrounds a pasture on quite a few evenings. On more than one of those occasions I’ve seen the bird repeatedly fly down from the fence into the field or onto the roadside. Each time it stays down in the grass for a few minutes, obviously eating something, but I’ve never been able to tell what. On this day, the mystery was solved, though. I sat in my truck watching and taking pictures while it repeated the behavior several times. Finally, on one of its dives, a whole bunch of large grasshoppers flew up out of the grass. I didn’t manage to capture that part since it happened so quickly, but it did answer the question of what the bird was hunting. Red shouldered hawks are well known for their hunting skills, and insects, especially larger ones, are definitely part of their diet during the summer. I love watching this bird hunt, so whenever it’s out when I go through, I stop. Now, I’ll know exactly what it’s after.