A Cooper’s Hawk had been hanging around our yard all spring. We’d see the bird glide across the driveway as we pulled in, or startle from a tree. But I felt a little thrill of terror when this past weekend my son-in-law pointed out a hawk’s nest high in an adjacent tree after I remarked on the bird. Sure enough—snuggled into what I had considered a squirrel’s nest was a good-sized hawk with the recognizable Cooper’s profile.
I do not have a serene relationship with Cooper’s Hawks. The bird murderers had been featured in an essay I wrote almost twenty years ago, after I watched one nab a flicker in mid-flight. The unfortunate flicker had banged into our kitchen window on Good Friday, probably trying to evade the hawk. I wrung my hands over flickers, hawks, food chains, and laws of nature. Twenty years later, I still try to make peace with predation.
With a Cooper’s Hawk in residence, I’d have to close my birdfeeders.
A little reading informed me that our resident chickadees, downies and nuthatches were not in as grave a danger with the ferocious neighbor than bigger birds—robins, jays, pigeons and, of course, flickers. While it is true that they are chiefly bird eaters, many authorities also list chipmunks, squirrels and mice as possible dinners. That was good. The little bird species live on our property all year round. They roost in certain tree cavities at night and in the winter; they return to their particular nest cavities come spring. They live here and now a new existential threat had suddenly appeared. Can any of you folks staying at home identify?
Cooper’s Hawks were originally woodland birds that are finding a home in the suburbs. Richard Crossley in his quirky guide even suggests that the once-shy birds have become emboldened to human presence. Emboldened? Our male hawk has staked out his perch near the driveway, and yields to no car or pedestrian. They typically build a stick nest 15-50 feet in a crotch of a tree, but have been known to repurpose squirrel nests. Raccoons and Great Horned Owls are common nest predators.
It looks like we might be treated to family life for the birds. Once the eggs are laid, the female incubates them for 14 straight days, while her mate brings her food. The incubation becomes less intense until the eggs hatch at 30-36 days. The chicks fledge in another month. Once they leave the nest, they return to it to sleep for the first 10 days, and remain nearby another five-six weeks. Doing the math, I figure we’ll have the hawks for most of the summer.
It will be an experience! I am already hearing vocalizations other than the “kac-kac-kac” of a hunting bird, resulting in what T. S. Roberts in Birds of Minnesota termed “the hush of death.” Roberts was agin’ them. In a time when many people kept chickens, Cooper’s Hawks were notorious for thinning flocks. Roberts felt this single species was responsible for the bad rap all hawks had with farmers.
Yet Cooper’s Hawks have weathered some rough times in the past century. Anti-hawk attitudes caused carnage in the early half of the 20th century. It was estimated that 30-40 % of all first year Cooper’s Hawks were shot. Then, the wide-spread use of DDT after WWII also caused numbers to plummet. It wasn’t until the chemical was banned in 1972 that a turn-around began. The population rebounded in the 1980s and 1990s. I recorded my life-list Cooper’s Hawk in 1974 at the Tamarack National Wildlife Refuge. I was too inexperienced to appreciate how exceptional that raptor was, in the first years of a post-DDT world. It was a sighting that promised a brighter future for the bird.
With a Cooper’s Hawk in residence, I’d have to close my birdfeeders.
A little reading informed me that our resident chickadees, downies and nuthatches were not in as grave a danger with the ferocious neighbor than bigger birds—robins, jays, pigeons and, of course, flickers. While it is true that they are chiefly bird eaters, many authorities also list chipmunks, squirrels and mice as possible dinners. That was good. The little bird species live on our property all year round. They roost in certain tree cavities at night and in the winter; they return to their particular nest cavities come spring. They live here and now a new existential threat had suddenly appeared. Can any of you folks staying at home identify?
Cooper’s Hawks were originally woodland birds that are finding a home in the suburbs. Richard Crossley in his quirky guide even suggests that the once-shy birds have become emboldened to human presence. Emboldened? Our male hawk has staked out his perch near the driveway, and yields to no car or pedestrian. They typically build a stick nest 15-50 feet in a crotch of a tree, but have been known to repurpose squirrel nests. Raccoons and Great Horned Owls are common nest predators.
It looks like we might be treated to family life for the birds. Once the eggs are laid, the female incubates them for 14 straight days, while her mate brings her food. The incubation becomes less intense until the eggs hatch at 30-36 days. The chicks fledge in another month. Once they leave the nest, they return to it to sleep for the first 10 days, and remain nearby another five-six weeks. Doing the math, I figure we’ll have the hawks for most of the summer.
It will be an experience! I am already hearing vocalizations other than the “kac-kac-kac” of a hunting bird, resulting in what T. S. Roberts in Birds of Minnesota termed “the hush of death.” Roberts was agin’ them. In a time when many people kept chickens, Cooper’s Hawks were notorious for thinning flocks. Roberts felt this single species was responsible for the bad rap all hawks had with farmers.
Yet Cooper’s Hawks have weathered some rough times in the past century. Anti-hawk attitudes caused carnage in the early half of the 20th century. It was estimated that 30-40 % of all first year Cooper’s Hawks were shot. Then, the wide-spread use of DDT after WWII also caused numbers to plummet. It wasn’t until the chemical was banned in 1972 that a turn-around began. The population rebounded in the 1980s and 1990s. I recorded my life-list Cooper’s Hawk in 1974 at the Tamarack National Wildlife Refuge. I was too inexperienced to appreciate how exceptional that raptor was, in the first years of a post-DDT world. It was a sighting that promised a brighter future for the bird.
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