Among the bird world's most skillful flyers, Cooper's Hawks are common woodland hawks that tear through cluttered tree canopies in high speed pursuit of other birds.
You're most likely to see one prowling above a forest edge or field using just a few stiff wingbeats followed by a glide.
With their smaller lookalike, the Sharp-Shinned Hawk, Cooper's Hawks make for famously tricky identification.
Both species are sometimes unwanted guests at bird feeders looking for an easy meal (but not one of the sunflower seeds!)
Cool Facts:
Dashing through vegetation to catch birds is a dangerous lifestyle. In a study of more than 300 Cooper's Hawks skeletons, 23% showed old healed over fractures in the bones of the chest, especially of the furcula, or wishbone. A Cooper's Hawk catches a bird with its feet and kills it by repeated sqeezing. Falcons tend to kill their prey by biting it, but the Cooper's Hawk hold their catch away from the body until it dies. They've even been known to drown their prey, holding a bird underwater until it stopped moving. Once thought averse to towns and cities, Cooper's Hawks are now fairly common urban and suburban birds. Some studies show their numbers are actually higher in towns than in their natural habitat, the forest. Cities provide plenty of Rock Pigeon and Mourning Dove prey. Though one study in Arizona found a downside to the high dove diet; Cooper's Hawk nestlings suffered from a parasitic disease they acquired from eating dove meat. Life is tricky for male Cooper's Hawks. As with most hawks, males are significantly smaller than their mates. The danger is that the female Cooper's Hawk specializes in eating medium-sized birds. Males tend to be submissive to females and to listen out for reassuring call notes the females make when they're willing to be approached. Males build the nest, they provide nearly all the food to females and young over the next 90 days before the young fledge. The oldest known Cooper's Hawk was 20 years, 4 months old.
Habitat:
Cooper’s Hawks are forest and woodland birds, but our leafy suburbs seem nearly as good. These lanky hawks are a regular sight in parks, quiet neighborhoods, over fields, at backyard feeders, and even along busy streets if there are trees around.
Food:
Cooper's Hawks mainly eat birds. Small birds are safer around Cooper's Hawks than medium sized birds; studies list: European Starlings, Mourning Doves and Rock Pigeons as common targets along with American Robins, Jays, Norther Flicker, quail, pheasant, grouse and chickens. Cooper's Hawks sometimes rob nests and also eat chimpmunks, hares, mice, Squirrels and bats. Mammals are more common in diets of Cooper's Hawks in the West.
Nesting:
Males typically build the nest over a period of about two weeks, with just the slightest help from the female. Nests are piles of sticks roughly 27 inches in diameter and 6-17 inches high with a cup-shaped depression in the middle, 8 inches across and 4 inches deep. The cup is lined with bark flakes and, sometimes, green twigs.
Nest Placement:
Cooper’s Hawks build nests in pines, oaks, Douglas-firs, beeches, spruces, and other tree species, often on flat ground rather than hillsides, and in dense woods. Nests are typically 25-50 feet high, often about two-thirds of the way up the tree in a crotch or on a horizontal branch.
Behavior:
Cooper’s Hawks show the classic accipiter flight style: a few stiff wingbeats followed by short glides. But in pursuit of prey their flight becomes powerful, quick, and very agile, allowing the bird to thread its way through tree branches at top speed. Courting birds display by flying with slow wingbeats, then gliding with wings held in a V. Males make a bowing display to females after pairing and before beginning to build the nest.
Conservation:
Cooper’s Hawk population trends are strong today. That's a turnaround from the mid-twentieth century, when use of the pesticide DDT and widespread shooting greatly reduced their numbers.
Be sure to stop by the Hawk Habitat and see our Coopers Hawks on your next visit
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RED SHOULDERED HAWK
A common forest-dwelling hawk of the East and California, the Red Shouldered Hawk favors woodlands near water.
It is perhaps the most vocal American Hawk.
Cool Facts:
The Red Shouldered Hawk is divided into five sub-species. The four eastern forms contact each other, but the West Coast form is seperated from the easterm forms by 1600 km (100 miles). The northern form is the largest. The form in very Southern Florida is the palest having a gray head and very faint barring on the chest. Although the American Crow often mobs the Red Shouldered Hawk, sometimes the relationship is not so one-sided. They may chase each other and try to steal food from each other. They may also both attack a Great Horned Owl and join forces to chase the owl out of the hawk's territory. By the time they are five days old, nestling Red Shoulder Hawks can shoot their feces over the edge of the nest. Bird poop on the ground is a sign of an active nest. The Great Horned Owl often takes nestling Red Shouldered Hawks, but the hawk occaisionally turns the tables. While a Red Shouldered Hawk was observed chasing a Great Horned Owl, its mate took a young owl out of its nest and ate it.
Habitat:
Forests with open understory, especially bottomland hardwoods, riparian areas, and flooded swamps.
Food:
Small mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and crayfish.
Nesting:
The nest is a large bowl of sticks, dried leaves, strips of bark, Spanish Moss, lichens and live conifer twigs. It is lined with fine bark, mosses, lichens and conifer twigs. It is placed in the main crotch of a tree, often near water.
Behavior:
The Red Shouldered Hawk drops on prey from a perch in the canopy. It may also hunt from the ground to catch mammals in burrows, hopping after them when they come out.
Conservation:
The clearing of forests over the last two centuries probrably led to decreases in populations of the Red Shouldered Hawk, while increasing habitat for the Red Tailed Hawk. Populations seem stable but may be declining in some areas.
Be sure to stop by the Hawk Habitat and see our Red Shoulder Hawks on your next visit
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RED TAILED HAWK
This is probably the most common hawk in North America.
If you've got sharp eyes you'll see several individuals on almost any long car ride, anywhere.
Red Tailed Hawks soar above open fields, slowly turning circles on their broad rounded wings.
Other times you'll see them atop telephone poles, eyes fixed on the ground to catch the movements of a vole or Rabbit, or simply waiting out cold weather before climbing a thermal updraft into the sky.
Cool Facts:
The Red Tailed Hawk has a thrilling, raspy scream that sounds exactly like a raptor should sound, At least that's what Hollywood directors seem to think. Whenever a hawk or Eagle appears onscreen, no matter what species, the shrill cry on the soundtrack is almost always a Red Tailed Hawk. Birds are amazingly adapted for life in the air. The Red Tailed Hawk is one of the largest birds you'll see in North America, yet even the biggest females weigh in at only about 3 pounds. A similar sized small dog might weigh 10 times that. The "Harlan's Hawk" breeds in Alaska and Northwestern Cananda and winters on the Southern Great Plains. This very dark form of the Red Tailed Hawk has a marbled white, brown and gray tail considered a seperate species until ornithologists discovered many individuals that were intermediate between Harlan's and more typical Red Tails. Courting Red Tailed Hawks put on a display in which they soar in wide circles at a great height. The male dives steeply, then shoots up again at an angle nearly as steep. After several of those swoops, he approaches the female from above, extends his legs and touches her briefly. Sometimes the pair grab onto one another, clasp talons and plummet in spirals toward the ground before pulling away. Mated pairs typically stay together until one of the pair dies. Red Tailed Hawks have been seen hunting as a pair, guarding opposite sides of the same tree to catch Squirrels. The oldest known Red Tailed Hawk was 28 years and 10 months old.
Habitat:
Red-tailed Hawks occupy just about every type of open habitat on the continent. This includes desert, scrublands, grasslands, roadsides, fields and pastures, parks, broken woodland, and (in Mexico) tropical rainforest.
Food:
Mammals make up the bulk of most Red Tailed Hawk meals. Frequent victims include voles, mice, wood rats, Rabbits, snowshoe hares, jackrabbits and Squirrels. T he hawks also eat birds including pheasants, bobwhite, starling and blackbirds as well as snakes and carrion. Individual prey items can weigh anywhere from less than an ounce to more than 5 pounds.
Nesting:
Both members build the nest, or simply refurbish one of the nests they’ve used in previous years. Nests are tall piles of dry sticks up to 6.5 feet high and 3 feet across. The inner cup is lined with bark strips, fresh foliage, and dry vegetation. Construction takes 4-7 days.
Nest Placement:
Red-tailed Hawks typically put their nests in the crowns of tall trees where they have a commanding view of the landscape. They may also nest on a cliff ledge or on artificial structures such as window ledges and billboard platforms.
Behavior:
Red-tailed Hawks are large, sharp-taloned birds that can be aggressive when defending nests or territories. They frequently chase off other hawks, eagles, and Great Horned Owls. Courting birds fly with legs hanging beneath them, or chase and swoop after each other, sometimes locking talons (see Cool Facts). Mated pairs typically stay together until one of the pair dies.
Conservation:
Common, with populations stable or increasing across North America.
Be sure to stop by the Hawk Habitat and see our Red Tail Hawks on your next visit
or you can see our Red Tailed Hawks now on our Live Video Feeds - Camera #2
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