I'd been picking up sticks out of the yard, and considering whether to make another sparrow pile or perhaps another giant yard nest when a hawk soared over my head. Hmmm. Looks rather long tailed for a buteo. I watched as it flew into a tree and wove amongst the branches maybe three blocks down. Accipiter!
I noted the tree against a chimney from a sight line over roofs from where I was standing . It looked like several of blocks away. I dumped the sticks, got the camera and as I was in a hurry, jumped into the car and took off.
I followed the sight line to the tree, in which I thought I'd seen the hawk enter. Nothing.
A friend had said a few days before she thought she'd seen some hawks in a tree doing "something odd" in front of a house quite a number of blocks away. Upon description the "something odd" might well have been copulation. I get back in the car and keep going further south.
There were three teenagers sitting on a porch across the street from the house number I'd been given so I asked them if they'd seen any hawks lately.
Nope, they hadn't. I scanned the trees in front of the noted house and there was what looked a whole lot like a nest.
See top photo.
Well it looks a bit like a crow's nest but not quite. Also too exposed. A squirrel dray that had lost its leaves? Wrong size twigs.
That's when a hawk, (Coopers maybe?) flew over my head to a tree in the backyard of the house where the mystery nest was in a front yard tree. Bird had disappeared. You never know what you might see when you bring the photo up at home. He had to be there somewhere.
Well not necessarily. They are very big about flying straight through thickets of trees without wiggling a twig.
I keep looking. What is that center? Is that a tail?
Yes it is. But at the time I didn't have the ability to zoom in this far. You can see it reasonably well with a cropped photo but at the time I wasn't sure of what I was looking at. So I looked over at what could be a nest.
Then took a couple of steps toward it. Saw something in the corner of my eye and looked back at the possible adult entry area from earlier.
Is that a hawk at the top of that evergreen?
No, in this case it IS the top of that evergreen. Sigh.
I look back left.
My my, wait just a minute. Look who has abandoned cover and is exposing himself. Well as much as an Accipiter EVER exposes himself.
I do believe that there are a couple of bright red eyes staring at me. Okay, I hate to admit it. And I'm sure I'll get used to them but a mature Cooper's bright red eyes do give me the creeps a little.
Which brings us to the question of just which species this bird is.
Ah ha! A Cooper's Hawk! Now let us talk once again about how one tells the difference. That leg doesn't look particularly like a stick, which many guides will tell you the legs of a Sharp-shinned look like. Not exactly a no fool field mark by any stretch of the imagination.
(When I got home I looked at Peterson's Hawks of North America and found one. Yes, I use Peterson's. Sibley's is for other things though I do find the drawing and paintings look more than a bit like stuffed bird skins. For a pure ID field mark, I go with Peterson's everytime.)
And what is that field mark for this species? For a mature adult Cooper's Hawk this is a jewel, for as we have discussed numerous times it isn't all that easy to decide only on the mark of size or the neck or no neck possibility for positive ID. Though I admit that those can be helpful. But do you know the sure way to tell a mature Coop from a mature Sharpie?
The color of the top of the head, that dark grey, does not continue down to meet the feather color of the back like a Sharpie's does. A Coopers hawk wears a "cap" and has lighter feathers at the back of the neck before going into the darker feathers of the back and wings.
Still obviously watching me, then...
Suddenly the hawk looks North.
And a different hawk zips over my head and whips into the tree across the street.
I go across the street and look up the trunk. Bingo!
I think this is the mate.
On the next shot, my flash accidentally goes off and she flips off the branch and is gone.
I look back, and the other hawk is gone. Misdirection by a pair, it works nearly every time. I scan further South, and keep going. No hawk.
There he is! And he knows I know but keeps sitting. I had read that some Cooper's Hawks are becoming comparatively human habituated and this may be one of the them.
Having "looked" at the hawks for some minutes, and it is getting dark, I decide that it is time to leave them in peace.
No question I'll be visiting them again soon.
Plus George and Martha of Highbridge Park have a Hatch!!!
Go to the links panel on the right and click on Rob Schmunk's link, Morningside Park Hawks for pix and details.
Happy Hawking!
Donegal Browne
2013-11-11
These are a few of the mean House Sparrows.
For whatever reason this flock of sparrows seems much more aggressive to other birds than I've seen other flocks behave at other feeders. They jump at the juncos, they gang up on the Goldfinch, and they even manage to chase away the White-breasted Nuthatch.
Nuthatch are not known to be timid birds. In fact they can be downright hostile if another bird gets between them and the sunflower seed they have an eye on.
I begin to notice that the male House Sparrows appear to sit atop the fence or the sparrow pile being hyper-vigilant most of the time.
Females tend to eat in protected spaces. (It isn't that it happens to be snowing slightly this day. ) Ordinarily, as many of you know, when it snows feeders will be mobbed by many species, stocking up calories for a cold moist roost.
It just wasn't happening.
2013-11-13
Two days later, on the 13th, the only bird I see is Silver guarding the white chest of drawers looking territorial and contemplating flying at my head.
Digression Alert! Silver is so intent on playing guard dog he won't even get a drink of water out of his own bowls which are in other rooms. Rather he flies down to the floor, drinks out of the cat bowl, and flies back up to the top of the dresser and waits for the interloper.
Me.
One would think that birds don't have much in the way of expressions, their "lips" don't move, right? But they do have expressions. Look carefully at Silver. His expressions are expressed with the shape of his eyes at any given moment, his body language and the position of his feathers.
Silver is giving me his "make my day" expression.
Can you see it?
Back to the issue--The feeders have remained empty. The Squirrels aren't scolding. I begin to suspect that there is a hawk skulking out there somewhere.
2013-11-15,
12:26 PM
I hear a Crow calling. I look outside from the first floor and can't see anything but a male House Sparrow on top of the Sparrow Pile. (photo left) I run up the stairs and there is a Crow delving for insects in the mulch.
Is the sentinel Crow in the Pondorosa Pine? Note the shadow of the pines, right. I switch rooms and windows.
Yes. She's there. She looks straight at me and doesn't move or call the alert.
I've been attempting to get the Crows to call me when they arrive. I run back down the stairs, grab some whole wheat bread in the kitchen, and head outside.
When I come into the Sentinel Crow's view I stop and hold the bread in the air for her to see. I walk over to the little shelf by the feeders and deposit the bread. It appears they weren't interested in the beans I'd put out earlier. Then I walk purposefully into the house without looking back.
12:29:35 PM I run back up the stairs and wait. Looking down I once again notice how much closer the Sparrow Pile is to the feeders here than it was in Milton. Wait. Are the Sparrows being more hostile due to some territorial issue due to proximity?
12:30:30 PM A Crow lands, checks out the bread, and takes a fragment. Part of which falls to the ground.
12:30:34 PM Another piece of bread is pushed into the beak.
12:30:37 PM She then goes for a third piece in his beak.
12:30:42 PM That done, Crow stares up at me for several seconds and then flies off photo left, West.
Crow only gets a few feet before half the bread falls into the wood pile. I can't get a picture because she is directly below me. I press my head to the glass. She methodically retrieves the bread. Looks back up again and then continues her flight in the original direction.
12:31:07 PM Position may be the impetus for the Sparrow problem. The only way to find out is to move it.
Fast forward to 11-28. The only species sighted were 2 House Sparrows on the top of the Sparrow Pile much earlier in the day.
12:40PM I grab the full trash bag, and go outside to put it in the bin. Just as I pass the garage, bringing the feeding area into view, a Cooper's hawk bursts into the air, possibly from the feeding area or maybe from atop the Sparrow Pile. The hawk heads across the yard toward the corner of the block.
Drat! I don't have the camera. Where did she go? I can't see her!
I fling down the trash, run into the house, grab the camera, and run up the stairs.
And the culprit is found! She's sitting in the Chinese Elm on the corner, scanning. I hit rapid fire on the camera, her head turns toward me and she's in the air flying north through the treeline of Spruce.
And she's gone.
But I've got her number now.
Happy Hawking
Donegal Browne
