A tale of two hawks

As always, click the photo to enlarge

An adult Red-shouldered Hawk (Buteo lineatus) sits on a wire in the little village of Limerick, in Jackson County, Ohio. I was here on December 29 to cover my turf for the Beaver Valley Christmas Bird Count, along with BWD (Bird Watcher's Digest) editor Jessica Vaughn. By the way, BWD is a great magazine and if you have an interest in birds, you should subscribe. Not to toot my own horn although I clearly am, but I have an article on Kankakee Sands in northwest Indiana in the current issue. It's a spectacular birding locale and I've written about Kankakee a number of times on this blog. The recent revamp and reissue of the magazine resulted in a physical size increase, which much better showcases the numerous excellent photos featured in each issue.

Anyway, we did well on the count, with 45 species, including two Eastern Phoebes. I find these tough little flycatchers about every three to five years on this count. If the weather gives them half a chance, they'll try to ride out the winter. The bird in the above photo was one of six Red-shouldered Hawks that we found, and it was sitting in clear view of an active feeder behind a church. Despite its presence, the songbirds were not overly deterred from hitting the feeders, although I'm sure they kept a close eye on the raptor. Red-shouldered Hawks routinely visit my yard, with its usually busy feeders. "My" birds react much the same. Activity carries on, the soundscape is awash with the regular calls, birds continue to hit the feeders, and bold little chickadees will fly right by the much larger raptor as it sits on the fence or a low limb of the walnut tree. The comparatively slow and cumbersome hawk would stand little chance of bagging speedy songbirds, and they know it. I must admit, Red-shouldered Hawks have a soft, rather cute appearance that befits their mellow (for a raptor) persona. Chipmunks, mice and shrews beware, though - they form a large part of Red-shouldered Hawks' diets. In warmer seasons, the raptors catch lots of amphibians and reptiles. I imagine my red-shouldered visitors are mostly watching for chipmunks and the occasional Short-tailed Shrew that dashes from cover for spilled seed.

A juvenile Cooper's Hawk perches in my backyard yesterday morning. These bird hunters are near daily visitors, and I often know when they are around without even casting eyes on one. The yard falls silent, and songbirds vanish. They know to take no foolhardy chances with a Cooper's Hawk, whose bread and butter is small birds.

Not who you would want to see looking your way, if you were a cardinal, junco, sparrow or some other little feathered fellow.

I have plenty of dense shrubby cover in the yard and that's where the birds quickly flee when the threat of a Cooper's Hawk appears. Even that won't necessarily stop attacks. On more than one occasion I have seen a hawk run into a shrubby thicket on foot - quite terrifying for the birds hiding within, I am sure!

Sometimes birds get caught unawares and find themselves out in the open when a Cooper's Hawk materializes. They will "sleek" themselves into a compressed posture and not move a muscle, sometimes for minutes. I once watched a Carolina Chickadee - normally in perpetual motion - sit utterly still for minutes as a hawk sat nearby. I imagine Cooper's Hawks are largely triggered by movement, so sitting stone still, even if relatively exposed, might permit survival.

This juvenile was quite "tame" (or naive) and allowed me to approach to about 20 feet without apparent bother. I try to keep the back windows clean for emergency photos, but generally despise shooting through extra glass. But given his (I think it was a male based on small size) youth, I figured I might try an outdoors approach. It worked and he was still sitting on the wire when I went back inside. The close approach allowed clear images of his death-dealing talons. A small bird seized in those clutches is instantly going to be maimed and not much later, dead, its fate to be plucked and eaten.

Some people who feed birds are greatly bothered by the appearance of Cooper's Hawks. I don't know why. They are magnificent animals that emit a highly palpable life force that alters the very dynamics of their surroundings. Their fierce eyes radiate predatory cunning, and the hunter will often twitch with pent up energy as it scans its surroundings, missing nothing. When the time for action arrives, the hawk is a fury of speed and motion, launching and attacking with mind-numbing quickness. It is a pinnacle of avian evolution, a logical acme of a fantastic evolutionary process.

Juvenile Cooper's Hawk

 

A juvenile male Cooper's Hawk sits on my backyard fence yesterday. I routinely receive visits from several different individuals, and it's not hard to tell when one is around. The songbirds make themselves scarce, and all gets pretty quiet. Interesting is the reaction of the Gray Squirrels. If a male hawk enters the yard, they'll often continue with business as usual. One was feeding at a feeder 15 feet from this perched hawk. However, if one of the much larger female Cooper's Hawks comes around, the squirrels typically scramble for cover. Female Coops are much larger - up to one-third again the size - of males. The squirrels feel decidedly uncomfortable when the big females lurk nearby, and with good reason. The bigger of the sexes can capture a squirrel, or at least make a valiant effort.

Cooper's Hawk visits backyard

As always, click the image to enlarge

A juvenile male Cooper's Hawk (Accipiter cooperii) glares my way. He's actually looking in front of my position, into a thicket of Coralberry (Symphoricarpos orbiculatus) where various songbirds were cowering. Much as I might enjoy the routine visits of these magnificent raptors, the songbird crowd would have a very different perspective. A Cooper's Hawk is their grim reaper in the flesh, come to rip them asunder and make a snack of them.

I generally know when a "Coop's" is around, even without seeing it. The normally bustling feeders and hedges are quiet as a library. I find it amusing that when a comparatively clumsy and lumbering Red-shouldered Hawk (Buteo lineatus) enters the yard, not much changes regarding songbird behavior. They know the big raptor has little chance of capturing them. Chickadees will dart right by its head going to and fro from feeders, and the same general activity level continues.

Not so with a bird hawk like a Cooper's Hawk. This animal is an extreme threat and the small birds know it. As soon as one is detected, the little fellows instantly vanish into thick cover, or if caught out, freeze still as a stone. I have watched chickadees, nuthatches and others sit without moving a muscle for five minutes or more. Such behavior is sometimes termed "sleeking" and as Accipiter hawks seem to key in on movement, sleeking presumably helps them avoid detection.

This Cooper's Hawk remained in the yard for about 45 minutes. Mostly it sat still for extended periods, waiting and watching. At one point it burst into flight and dove into the neighbor's dense arbor-vitae tree, where a score of House Sparrows (Passer domesticus) huddled. It emerged empty-taloned. In my opinion, the House Sparrow is the smartest species of songbird in the yard, and they're very hard for the hawks to catch. After a bit, the hawk left for greener pastures and within a few minutes everyone was emerging from their shrubby trenches and activity was soon back to normal. But this scenario will soon be repeated. The raptors are daily visitors. No one should be bothered by indirectly feeding hawks by providing seed to lure songbirds. Nature is shot through with all manner of predator-prey relationships, although not too many are as conspicuous as a Cooper's Hawk whacking a cardinal outside your back window.

PHOTO NOTES: I generally always have a telephoto lens handy in the house, for situations such as this. I usually try and quietly open an appropriate window, so I don't have to shoot through additional glass (never shoot through unnecessary glass. Including filters, at least most of the time). When this Cooper's Hawk eventually flew to a nearby fence, he gave me opportunities for portraiture type shots. And the shot that I wanted was pretty much just what I ended up with: the bird glaring directly at me, so that the portrait would show what an unlucky songbird might see in its last moments. It was just a matter of waiting for the bird to adopt that posture, and I was ready when he did.

This image was shot with the Canon 5D IV and 800mm f/5.6mm lens, handheld but balanced on the back of a chair. Knowing that this was the priority head angle I was waiting for, I was stopped down to f/13 to give more depth of field throughout the face and eyes. Shutter speed was a low 1/250, but it was a poorly lit day and that was an effort to help keep the ISO lower. Nonetheless, the latter was 1600 with +0.3 EV dialed in. A bit high for my tastes but when light is poor higher ISO's are a reality. And I don't like shooting that heavy huge rig at slower shutter speeds than what I used, at least without a tripod.

Cooper's Hawk

 

An adult male Cooper's Hawk perches on a backyard fence, yesterday. These exciting raptors routinely enter my yard, lured indirectly by my bird feeders. They seek the birds who come to plunder the seeds, not the seeds themselves.

It's virtually impossible for a raptor to "sneak" into the yard. Too many sharp sets of eyes. This guy was made instantly, and the alarm went up. About 12 feet away, in front of the hawk and to the left and out of the photo, is a dense shrub. A pair of Tufted Titmice were cursing up a blue streak at the Cooper's Hawk. He was ticked, and would make false starts in their direction, as he is here, but wouldn't launch as he knew there was probably no chance of snagging one in all that cover.

I've been pretty well glued to my desk for some time now, and can't see the backyard from my office. Today, on a rare trip by the back windows the same male Cooper's Hawk shot in and landed maybe ten feet from the porch windows. I always have a big camera rig mounted on a tripod and ready for action, fortunately. The hawk then hopped over to a nearby redbud snag I placed near the feeders. It makes for a great perch, including for raptors.

When The Coop's barreled in, he spooked a bevy of House, Song, and White-throated sparrows into the lush American Beauty-berry thicket that surrounds this perch. The hawk glared into the dense growth, but it's just too thick for him to work, and the sparrows remained safe.

Before long, he shot out of the yard, empty of talon. I'm sure these raptors take their share of "my" birds, though. I sometimes see evidence of their kills. This male is not the only one, either. A massive adult female sometimes visits - females can be one-third larger than males - and a subadult bird as well.

While the local songbirds don't care for these raptors, they do add action to the yard. The entire yard instantly changes when one enters. Mourning Doves will hurtle into tree cover as if shot from a cannon. Many songbirds dive for thick cover. Chickadees often "sleek": flatten their feathers and sit tight like a bump on a log, not even moving their head. They may remain sleeked for five minutes or more if need be. Bolder birds, like titmice Blue Jays, and Carolina Wrens might deliver unrelenting and loud scolds.

Interestingly, the Gray Squirrels act as if nothing is amiss when this male Cooper's Hawk is around. They'll continue feeding on the ground almost underneath the perched bird, as if it isn't there. Yesterday, a squirrel even went onto the same limb the hawk was sitting on and flushed it. If it's the much larger female, or one of the Red-shouldered or Red-tailed Hawks, the squirrels aren't nearly so bold and they too cower in cover. Conversely, the songbirds - at least with the red-shouldereds and red-taileds - carry on nearly as normal. It's hard for the comparatively clumsy buteo hawks to catch little birds, and the little fellows know it. They never fool with the much more dangerous Cooper's Hawks.

Cooper's hawk strikes, misses!

I was in my home office around noon today when I heard a loud BANG! against a window. That can only mean one thing, the local Cooper's hawk is staging a raid. Window strikes are nearly nonexistent here, thanks to deterrent stickers, but when the Cooper's hawk barrels in unexpectedly, jays and others sometimes smack a window in their haste to escape. Today, I was quick with the camera and caught the hawk sitting atop my mealworm tray feeder. He was unsuccessful this time but I don't begrudge him his livelihood. Although I would be seriously bummed if he got a bluebird, or - horrors! - Albert, the white-headed blue jay.

Note his fluffy white undertail coverts. They can flare those out to the sides during display flights. He’s been making these lately. It’s a slow flight with really deep exaggerated wing beats punctuated by glides with the wings held in a steep dihedral (V-shaped) position. Absolutely nothing like their normal flight, and if a distant observer was not familiar with it, I could see the bird being called a something other than a Cooper's hawk.

I'm sure the nest is not far off. One or the other of a pair visits more days than not. As does a pair of red-shouldered hawks. The reaction of the feeder birds to these two raptors is radically different. If a red-shouldered hawk sails in, the lesser birds might instinctively duck for cover, but their fear is short-lived. Even if the hawk sits prominently on the fence or elsewhere in the yard, they'll quickly resume business, visiting feeders and flying to and fro, often nearly right over the glaring hawk's head. Red-shouldered hawks are not very adept at catching birds, and the little fellows know it. Chipmunks, that's a different story. I have yet to see one in the yard this spring. I suspect the red-shouldereds have done a number on them.

Contrarily, when a Cooper's hawk hits the yard - usually in an instantaneous blitzkrieg, using the house, fences, or trees as cover - it's like a bomb went off. This species is a specialist of songbird hunting. Birds explode in every direction in a mad dash for thick cover. In the back corner of the lot is an old, dense forsythia shrub, and that's a common shelter. I've seen the hawks run in there on foot in their lust to kill a songbird. Birds that have no time to react to the appearance of a Cooper's hawk will "sleek": pull their feathers in tight and not move a muscle. They remain utterly frozen in place, scarcely even moving their head, until the danger has passed. I have seen Carolina chickadees remain motionless for probably five minutes. Not until everyone is well convinced that the hawk has departed do the crowds return to the feeders.

Psychotic Homicidal Beast Friday

I saw a Sharp-shinned Hawk the other day, tracing lazy, languid circles high in the sky. A migrant, the "sharpie" was off to parts north, and this is about as placid as you'll ever see one of these birds behaving.

This got me thinking about "Sky Watch Friday". A lovely bit of goodness, this site allows photographers to post beautiful images of fluffy clouds, tantalizing sunsets, and other awe-inspiring views of the ether.

Very nice.

But there are winged savages up there in the sky, like the above Sharp-shinned Hawk. If these feathered balls of testosterone were the size of Trumpeter Swans, we'd all be dead. They'd run us down, pluck off our extremities, and feast on our innards. The sharpie is a fitting subject for Psychotic Homicidal Beast Friday, a blogger's tribute to the week's end that is very unlikely to catch on.

Sharp-shinneds like to attack things. They seem to be utterly devoid of fear. In migration, they'll routinely strafe larger, more sluggish and mellower co-migrants like Red-tailed Hawks, just for kicks, apparently. Yes, if these boys were human, they'd be stored in rubber rooms and fed through slots.


All of the Accipiter tribe are hostile. These are the bird hawks, equipped with long rudderlike tails to facilitate quick jigs and jags, and short rounded wings, the better to accelerate in fast bursts and get through dense thickets. No songbird is safe with lurking accipters nearby.

The above silhouette is a cardinal's Grim Reaper come to life; the spector of death for small birds. A Cooper's Hawk, the bigger relative of the sharpies and every bit as aggressive. They are like Mike Tyson, Wayne Gretzky, and Ghengis Khan rolled into one: savage aggression, suberb agility, and cunning warrior skills. I have seen coops go so far as to run on foot into shrubby thickets where songbirds cowered and the vegetation was too dense to fly into. That'd be like your worst dream come true, if you were the House Sparrow in the shrub.

I photographed the above confrontation a while back. Cooper's (left) meets Sharp-shinned (right). They didn't like each other. It was a battle of Alpha versus Alpha, as the little sharpie badgered the bigger coop, who would then chase his tormentor. Kind of like two bigtime wrestlers, maybe Stone Cold Steve Austin going after Andre the Giant.

Don't get me wrong. I love these birds, and admire everything about them. A group of us stumbled across the above Sharp-shinned Hawk, just after it had killed a Brown-headed Cowbird, last year. Like an unrepentant street thug, it gave us the evil eye for daring to intrude, and held its turf. These birds really aren't intimidated by much.

It was very apropos that Attila the Hun bedecked his war helmet with the likeness of a Northern Goshawk, the largest and most savage Accipiter of them all.

If you want to learn more about raptors, or even if you don't but do want to attend a fun birding event, come to Lake Erie Wing Watch. Held on Saturday, April 4th in Port Clinton, there'll be plenty of interesting talks, capped by keynote Chuck Hagner speaking about Kirtland's Warblers. I'll be giving a program on raptors, and there'll be talks on waterfowl, bird song, shorebirds, photography, and more. Register HERE!