Cooper's Hawk

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32shooter

Blackhawk
Joined
Jul 5, 2012
Messages
926
Location
Ohio
Found this little guy sitting outside my Mother's garage several weeks ago having some lunch. He would let me get rather close and never did fly until he finished up. Wasn't much left over when he left, a few kernels of corn, rib cage and feathers.
5E3gxkR.jpg
 
Joined
Jan 20, 2008
Messages
2,271
Location
Orange County, CA
Cooper's and their relatives (Accipteridae--excuse my Latin) are pretty unimpressed with us humans right up to when the #6s land on 'em. I've been seriously buzzed by Goshawks, Cooper's, and Sharpshins when I got too near their nesting trees.

Once in the Snake River Breaks off the east end of WA state in Asotin County, I was closing in on a covey of California Quail in a big patch of blackberries around a seep. Just as I threw my shotgun up to shoot at one that flushed, a Sharpshin buzzed past me and nailed the next one to flush.

I sent my pup in to retrieve mine and the hawk sat on his as the dog bounded by not three feet away. Then he packed the dead bird off into the stickers and left me with my mouth open!

Steven Bodio calls all Accipters "crazy" in one of his falconry books and he means DANGEROUS. Tameable until they decide not be....

The suburban Cooper's in my neighborhood in Orange County CA feed on finches and sparrows at suburbanites' bird feeders and drink out of their swimming pools! And live in their Monterey pines and anoint their Maseratis and Beemers with bird bits like 32shooter's hawk is leaving.
 

coach

Hunter
Joined
Aug 28, 2007
Messages
3,767
Location
Jacksonville, Maryland
When we moved to a place where we had a bird feeder near the house I wondered why birds were so twitchy. After I started finding small piles of feathers under trees and saw hawks snatch a few birds I got it. I can often tell when a hawk is around by the crows and mockingbirds making a fuss or all the birds around the feeder have disappeared.
 
Joined
Mar 24, 2002
Messages
6,243
Location
Oregon City, Oregon
The hawks use my yard for an occasional lunch counter. They fly thru the trees and thru the shrubs at warp speed in chase of the little birdies. Amazing they don't get hurt.

A while back, I saw a hawk in my front yard, pulverizing a starling with his talons. I watched him, and when he was done, the only thing left on the ground was a beak. No feathers and no down. I was surprised he'd eat a starling, but also surprised he left no feathers.

I see more ospreys than I used to see. They are amazing. They'll pluck a fish from the water for breakfast, a pigeon off a cement structure for lunch, and they will snatch a bird right out of the air for dinner.
 
Joined
Jan 20, 2008
Messages
2,271
Location
Orange County, CA
The accipter famiy of hawks is "optimized for low-level missions" by having short, wide, sturdy wings and a long slender tail so they can smash thru foliage without getting hurt and still maintain direction.

About the only time you see them 'way up high is when they are migrating and gather over certain mountains that generate a big thermal so they can fly in circles ("gyres") in a bunch. That is about the only time you will see a "flock" of accipters, all species mixed together. There are various places where this occurs, some of them called "Hawk Mountain."

I guess everyone loves an airshow!
 

BearBio

Buckeye
Joined
Oct 22, 2009
Messages
1,826
Location
Eastern Washington
We had a Coop's sitting on our fence for several days a couple of years ago. We had a bird waterer and he/she just sat an wauted for the Valley Quail to come in.

I've seen a sharp-shinned around several times the last couple of years. Our sunflowers attract a lot of finches and a few tit-mice.
 

jgt

Buckeye
Joined
Jul 30, 2008
Messages
1,000
Location
coleman texas
One afternoon I came home to a severely flustered wife. When I asked what was wrong, she told me there was some bird behind the washing machine (in the garage) that flew up and scared the .... out of her when she went out there to wash the clothes. I went out to the garage and sure enough a little hawk flew up to about two feet above the washing machine, but was flying into the wall trying to escape and falling back behind it. I put on some welding gloves and went back over there. When he flew up I manage to grab him. He was little, but could open his mouth large enough to get a whole sparrow sized bird in it. I walked out into the driveway and threw him into the air. He never missed a beat, caught air under his wings and was gone like a shot. My guess was he flew into the garage while the door was open and hit the back wall. I guess he was disoriented, because he could not seem to figure out how to get back out. Never saw him again.
 

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