This Cooper's Hawk Came Into My Yard

I was sitting at the kitchen table on a cold 25 degree day last January when I saw a Cooper's hawk came crashing into a tree behind my yard (approximately 30 feet away). I grabbed the camera and ran out to the back deck without coat or shoes. The hawk was nice enough to calmly perch on a branch and let me take a couple dozens of pictures before I had to retreat into the house (shaking with cold by then).

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That's dedication and it paid off nicely. Well done on these. This is a Red-shouldered Hawk though.

Well done Linh.

Candor wrote in post #16911759
That's dedication and it paid off nicely. Well done on these. This is a Red-shouldered Hawk though.

Mike, thanks for the correction. I always have troubles telling these two from each other.

Beauty captures and paid off in the cold.

great shots- hope he left your songbirds alone

CaptBob wrote in post #16913218
great shots- hope he left your songbirds alone

There are a couple of them hunting daily in the area now. I don't know if they have hit any of "my" songbirds or not. The songbird traffic in the backyard is still good, albeit less than last year. No hummingbirds, though. We had about 4 of them appearing daily last spring/summer. None shows up this year yet.

Bob ... your comment on "... left the songbirds alone" reminded me of this incident last October.

I was working at my computer desk when something crashed into the window (maybe window frame) right *next* to me. I looked over and saw a HAWK bouncing off the window onto the deck. I grabbed the camera and ran out. In the meantime he tried to fly away, only to stumble and fall down to the side yard. By the time I got out to the deck, he recovered enough to fly into a bush across the street, about 75 feet away. I grabbed a shot then tried to get closer. However, he took off before I could get close enough for a decent shot with my old XTi. From this picture, it looks like a Cooper's Hawk to me. It is the very first for me to see this species ... and so up close (about 3 feet away when I saw him falling to the deck). It did happen that there had been half a dozen of songbirds on my deck a few minutes before this.

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Those are very nice shots. I got a cooper in a tree in my yard recently, but he was behind some limbs that obscured him. I got the shot anyway, but I wish he had been more in the open.
Good work.

Very nice. When all else fails eye color is a good indication. Coops will transition from yellow to orange to red as they age. First is definitely red shouldered and last is adult coopers. And it is difficult to get adult coopers without branches as they typically hunt in wooded areas or are soaring pretty high. Occasionally I've seen them dive bomb prey from the air but typically weaving through trees and brush.

Great shot