post new topic

Cooper's Hawk

Related Forum Topics:
Really Mean Birds
I like birds.
Attack Birds!
Humming Birds
Juvenile Birds
birds showering


Cooper's Hawk - 2004/11/22 20:22 I got to see my first Cooper's Hawk yesterday and was so impressed. He was not real shy either. I could walk to within about 20 feet of him. He was sitting on my fence and looked so regal. I couldn't figure out why the other birds were not around. Do they bother the squirrels, (red or gray)? I know they will catch small birds and probably mice. I live in the center of town and that is why I am so surprised by the sighting. He stayed around for about 20 minutes and then went somewhere else and the other birds returned.



  Popular posts by phunkystuff
Brown-headed Cowbird
grosbeak mia
  | | | post reply
re:Cooper's Hawk - 2004/11/23 18:38 not really shy either. I could walk to within about 20 feet of him.

I've suprrised CH's bathgin in bird baths or in the shower from automatic landscaping water srpinlkers twice. The first 1 flew away, but the second just readily stasyed put, enjoying his bath as I watched...

I heard a bird call I shouldn't immediately identify. "Keck keck, keck keck," is the territrorial challenge of the CH. I watched the pair of CH's build a nest and fledge four hawklets last year in a grove of scrub oaks which had a hiking trail trhuogh it and quite a bit of traffic. I watcehd the hawklets learn to fly a bit by hopping branch to branch and fluttering their little wings. I kindly used to lay down in the leaves under their nest tree and one of the pair would buzz me within six feet.

Last time I saw any activity near the nest, one of the parents had caught a large woodrtat and stashed it on a branch.
sighting.

I live in a crowded old residential neighbvorhood a block from the main business district. A Sharp-shinned Hawk nests in a tree up the street. Coopers Hawks live about two blocks away, nesting in tall old eucalyptus trees that must be
150 feet tall. I can hear the CH's "takling" to each other endlessly.

And Red-tailed Hawks soar over apartment buildings and over the freeway. In the same way I don't know what they expect to catch. I haven't heard anythging lately about the flock of chickens that used to live in the bushes by the freeway. While some may see it differently maybe the
RTH's are preyin on pigewons on the rooftops...



  Popular posts by BBnDB2
Miniature duck?
Anhingas in the Colorado river delt...
Krishnamurti's bird?
  | | | post reply
re:Cooper's Hawk - 2004/11/24 17:45 Cooper's Hawks have adapted well to humans and are more common around human habitation than most people think. They are normally much less conspicuous than, say, a Red-tailed Hawk that perches by a roadside or soars for long periods overhead. I heard the noted raptor expert William
Clark say at a presentation that some of these Coop's that live in suburbia become quite nonchalant about human presence.

As to whether they will bother squirrels - in general I think the answer is a qualified "yes". A small male Coop might not try for a big Fox Squirrel, but in general if the hawk is big enough relative to the squirrel (or other small mammal), the mammal is a potential target. That being said, birds are of course the most common prey of Cooper's Hawks.



  Popular posts by SamTheNewbiemanderLive
Whip-poor-will
Record late Cerulean Warbler
Bird ID Confermation
  | | | post reply

Related Products:
   Birds Of Prey - Unisex Short-sleeve T-shirt - 100% Preshrunk Cotton - ...
   Hawk, I'm Your Brother
   Summer Hawk