Juvenile Cooper's Hawks Staying Cool

If you want to attract wildlife to your backyard habitat...provide water.

Especially in the west, where summer temperatures continue to rise each year, water is a vital resource for wildlife. We have a new pair of Cooper's hawks that have recently fledged. Their parents taught them to come to our backyard for water and ...

...to keep cool. For these young birds of prey the option to stand in cool water, helps them cool down. These two have been daily visitors for the past two weeks. At first they stood and watched the house finches and lesser goldfinches on the bird feeder. Now they are beginning to understand that these smaller birds are their prey.

Sometimes they stand in the water for 10-15 minutes at a time. Their mottled feathering really helps them camouflage in the dappled shade.

We provide both still and flowing water in a fountain. We don't want to provide habitat for mosquitoes, so we change out the still water every other day and the fountain's well of water is covered. Mosquito-borne diseases can be deadly to birds and people. Keep your water clean. 

Adult Cooper's hawk in birdbath
Previous Cooper's hawk juveniles 

Cooper's Hawk Comes for a Bath

We had a visitor this morning: an adult Cooper's hawk. Typically they come to hunt the mourning doves and band-tailed pigeons, but this morning the bird bath was the main attraction.

Even birds of prey need a drink or a bath now and then. Both the red-tailed hawks and the Cooper's hawks seem to prefer the still, raised bird bath over the bubbling fountain 20 feet away. The juncos and the hermit thrush prefer a shallow dish placed under a rose bush. Water is vital for creating habitat.

Placing water in an open space enables birds to see any lurking dangers and frequently allows them to feel comfortable enough to happily splash and play in the water.

Cooper's hawks are frequent visitors and have even nested next door. This, however, was a pleasant surprise, a special moment shared because wild creatures see our yard as a safe and natural place to visit. Create habitat in your yard and you'll expand your own experiences.

Insects Feeding on Hawk Leftovers

The young Cooper's hawks are becoming the center of their own ecosystem. Their overworked parents bring food, drop it off and leave again, just that fast. With four juveniles that eat as much as they do, each parent is having to catch three times its normal prey. 


 
They aren't restricting their hunting to birds, they are bringing back whatever they can find. Rats have definitely been on the menu.


The juveniles eat their fill and then, similar to owl pellets, they cough up clumps of hard to digest bones and fur.


These "casts" are a bit gory, but they are in turn providing food to carnivorous insects like the yellow jackets in the video here. Listen and you will hear one of the young hawks calling in the background. Ants and flies are eating the leftovers, while western fence lizards are then pouncing on both species of insects. Spiders also will benefit. The ring-necked snake benefits from the success of the lizards.


Our yard is alive with biodiversity. Thanks to Eclipse-1 Media.

Pre-School for Cooper's Hawks

young Cooper's hawk

The Cooper’s hawks have had a huge family this year. They first mated back in March. They must have lost the first clutch, but they are making up for it. There are four recently fledged juveniles hanging out in the backyard. In the morning and late afternoon they raucously call for their parents to bring them food.

Two of the larger juveniles are starting to follow the parents. It would be fascinating to see if they are watching their parents hunt.

Catching enough food to provision the four youngsters, who are now as large as their parents, is a Herculean task. The parents aren’t being picky about prey; rats have even become part of the fare.

With four youngsters to watch over, it's understandable that while the parents were off with the bigger chicks when they first left the nest, they missed that the little one didn't want to be left behind. The little hawk was not yet able to fly and ended up on a neighbor's front porch, just steps from the sidewalk. The flurry of humans wanted to "save" the little guy. But these hawks are devoted parents, like most birds, I convinced everyone to give the parents time to collect their youngster. I relocated the juvenile a short distance from its landing spot to an area that was away from the sidewalk, shaded yet visible to the parents. The parents did return and communicated to their little one what it needed to do, to get safely up into a tree.

He is flying a little, but still not well enough to follow the parents. The smallest of the juveniles he's pictured here. He's hungry enough that he has started trying to catch his own food. His movements are not skillful and his attempts seem to be in slow motion. He went toward a group of house finches, who stayed just out of his reach, then he turned to go after a fox squirrel. The squirrel couldn’t believe its eyes at first. It moved just out of the young hawks reach, then actually came back to taunt the young bird.

When he isn’t calling for his parents, the young hawk sits watching the small birds that one day will be its food staple. He’s learning how they fly, their alarm calls, how they respond to threats. His sharp eyes are ever watchful.  Cooper's hawk on fountain.

Meanwhile the California towhees are taking no chances. They are teaching their youngster to fly under the covered patio and carport. No use tempting the young Cooper’s hawk to make its first self-caught meal a young towhee just learning to fly.

Evidence of a Cooper's Hawk

This morning the Cooper’s hawk was in the yard. I didn’t see it or hear it, but like any visitor it left behind evidence.

Apparently, this Cooper’s hawk is molting. A variety of feathers were loosely scattered about. Fluffy underdown here, a flight feather there. This wasn’t the explosion of feathers left behind when a Cooper’s hawk plucks a mourning dove it has caught, but instead random feathers in our yard, one on the sidewalk out front and another down the block.

Feathers wear, get damaged and breakdown. Most birds will loose and replace all of their feathers annually either in sections or all at once (called a catastrophic molt, when a bird looses too many feathers at one time to be able to fly). Just as many mammals shed their heavy winter fur, it is natural for birds to molt their feathers.

Many living things pass through a habitat. In this case the Cooper’s hawks come for water and food. Often you may not see these visitors directly, but if you look for evidence you may realize that the biodiversity in your yard is greater than you think.

A Pair of Cooper's Hawks

immature Cooper's hawk in the rain

It is official, the Cooper's hawks are trying to start a family. 


For three hours on Sunday, an immature Cooper's hawk sat on the power line above our bird feeders in the rain. The bird did not seek shelter and looked a bit soggy with a drop of water dripping every few minutes from its beak.


Last year a pair of Cooper's hawks successfully nested in a large jacaranda tree about a block away. This year an immature individual began hanging around about a month ago and was occasionally seen with a mature bird. The immature Cooper's hawk pictured here does not yet have the distinctive gray cap and back of an adult. It is still more brown in coloration around the head and shoulders. Notice the banded tail typical of Cooper's and sharp-shinned hawks. These fast maneuvering hawks are bird predators and their appearance in the yard has disgruntled the band-tailed pigeons.

young female Cooper's hawk

I wasn't quite sure of the relationship between the two Cooper's hawks, but yesterday it all became clear.


The immature or young hawk is a female and the adult is a male. He brought her a mourning dove yesterday to seal their relationship and prove his ability as a provider. She accepted the dove and his sexual advances. Occasionally, I see one or the other of them fly past the window with a stick or pine bough. They are building a nest, but I haven't spotted the location yet.


If you are noticing nesting birds in your area, take a minute and consider documenting the nesting attempt on Cornell University's NestWatch website. Scientists can't be in everyone's backyard, but you can play an important roll for scientists; be their eyes, ears and observers. 


The Bewick's wrens were back working on their nest in the lariat house yesterday. And I'm still searching for a hummingbird nest; there have been starts and stops due to the rainy weather. Follow the daily progress of your nesting birds. You'll be surprised by their daily dramas and joys. Document it all with just a few minutes every 4 days and you'll play an important roll for science.

Do Birds Mourn?

Do birds mourn? Do other species have complex family relationships that we don't recognize because we don't take time to observe? Yesterday at dusk, a band-tailed pigeon sat at the feeder trying to eat. It struggled to move the food from it's crop (a kind of holding pouch in the throat) down into its stomach. It's feathers were slightly fluffed up, a definite sign in warm weather that a bird is not feeling its best.


I had seen this bird the day before. Band-tailed pigeons are the largest birds that come to my feeder. They stand about 10 inches tall and are heavy bodied like the imported rock pigeons you might see in a parking lot. But the band-tailed pigeon is a native Californian and historically flocks of them thrived on acorns in our oak woodlands. Diminished numbers of old-growth oaks have meant fewer of these beautiful gray birds with iridescent green at the back of their neck and a whitish band across the tail. For the past seven years these birds have been regulars at my feeder. They first appeared in 2004, but by 2005 we were seeing them year-round.


On Saturday, I noticed that this band-tail came to the yard alone, (unusual because they typically are in family groups), and it seemed punch-drunk, unstable, like it had just survived a predator attack - most likely from a Cooper's hawk. A few of its feathers were askew. It sat quietly perched in a tree trying to compose itself. Later it was gone.


The Cooper's hawks have been hunting our neighborhood intensely for about a month and the band-tailed pigeons have actually become weekly visitors rather than daily. When they come they eat, drink and move on. They don't dally.


Last night when I watched the injured band-tail trying to swallow, my hope that it had survived the massive impact that a hawk attack can deliver began to dwindle. I've seen this before, a bird that escapes a predator attack may suffer internal injuries that are fatal. Cooper's hawk attacks band-tailed pigeon.


As night fell the injured band-tailed pigeon bedded down about five feet off the ground in a small lavatera shrub, unusual for a bird that typically roosts overnight in a large tree 40 feet or higher.


Sometime in the early morning the band-tailed pigeon died. I found its quiet body at the base of the bush. As I gently picked it up and grabbed a shovel to bury it on the hillside, I realized I was being watched. Four adult band-tailed pigeon perched in the large pine tree next door. Were they waiting for their injured family member to emerge from its evening roost? Had they spent the night here, watching over their injured companion?


I held the silent gray form up for them to see before I buried it in the earth. Eight eyes followed my movements. They remained silently perched. I refilled the feeders, but they did not come down to eat.  They do not appear to be here for food. Do they understand that this bird has died? Do they mourn the loss of a family member? I have seen one band-tail risk its life to alert another of a predator. What really goes on in their family relationships?


Too often we paint ourselves as emotionally superior to other species and point out that humans have complex communications and relationships. But I have seen crows solicit help from ravens to drive off an owl - Mobbing an Owl. I've seen an Allen's hummingbird mother become distraught over a destroyed nest - Rescuing Hummingbird. I've watched a female Allen's hummingbird fend off another female trying to steal her nest and documented the soap opera interrelationships of a group of nesting females - Allen's Hummingbirds.


I don't know if the band-tailed pigeons are mourning the loss of one of their own this morning, but they are here for a reason. And the more I watch the creatures around me the more I am amazed and humbled by them.

Cooper's Hawk in the Garden

Water is a vital element to a habitat. The fountain that we added this winter has attracted a variety of birds including this adult Cooper's hawk. It stood in the bubbling water for 10 minutes. Later the same day, an immature Cooper's hawk took a turn standing in the exact same location.

Did it observe the older hawk or was there some communication between the two birds about the interesting new water source?