Cooper's Hawk Hunting

 On November 5th, I was on my way to take photos of the red Framingham screech owl. I had my tripod and camera in my backpack, and was going to walk to the screech owl's hole, to wait again for his little orange head to poke up. I left my yard, and almost immediately heard a rustling noise. I glanced to my left to see a little hawk land on the sidewalk on Salvi Drive. I quickly took out my camera, and started taking photos. I could tell by it's banded tail, and the brown streaks on it's white belly, that this was a cooper's hawk. It stared at me for a second, before looking at the hedge.

The cooper's hawk stared into the hedge for a second, and then flapped like crazy, up and down the bush, trying to catch something. I immediately knew that it was hunting for house sparrows. Every single time I used to pass this hedge on my walk home from school, I would hear a flock of them launch up into the cherry tree nearby. That hedge would be a very good spot to hunt, if it weren't for the fact that the hawk was having so much trouble reaching into the thick bush from the outside. The sparrows could hop around the inside of that hedge with ease, leaving the cooper's hawk confused...

The cooper's hawk is an Accipiter (bird hunting hawks), so while red tailed hawks are heavier, stronger, and more suited for hunting rodents, cooper's hawks, sharp shinned hawks and goshawks are adapted to chase birds. Accipiters tend to be more fast, light, maneuverable, and spend more time perched than red tailed hawks. The bird's head was constantly scanning for movement, down inside the hedge.

I took a long video, which had to be separated into 2 videos in order to upload them here. This first one is of the cooper's hawk hunting. If you turn up your volume, you can hear the house sparrows panicking inside the hedge. House sparrows are actually an invasive bird, introduced from Europe. so this cooper's hawk is helping the environment by trying to kill them.

Eventually, it gave up, and launched. It flew about 50 yards, it was clearly still hungry, because it landed in a neighbor's tree who had a bird feeder...

It was amazing to see so much action so close to my house. I hope this hawk catches enough sparrows to survive the winter.