No bird soars too high, if …

No bird soars too high, if he soars with his own wings

A William Blake quotation

Identify this bird

This bird, with its various races, is the most widely distributed, most universally common, and best known of all our birds of prey.

It is found in North and Central America and the islands of the Caribbean Sea. This bird is generally regarded as a sluggish, inactive bird, for it spends much of its time standing erect on some lofty perch, slowly checking out its surroundings. It is one of the shiest of these types of birds. A man on foot can seldom approach one to within 100 yards, and often it will fly away at twice that distance.

Those in the know generally concede that this bird is a highly beneficial species, as its food consists mainly of injurious rodents and as it does very little damage to domestic poultry or wild birds.