Just last week I was ooohing and ahhhing over the large number of dark-eyed juncos feeding beneath our feeders. “Nearly 50 of them!” I announced to my husband. Suddenly, the flock took flight simultaneously, some of them hitting the window. A grey blur entered the scene and plopped down onto the snow. In its talons, the Cooper’s hawk held one of the juncos, struggling in its grip. After a minute or two, the hawk launched itself upward, junco dangling beneath, coming to land on a nearby fencepost where it devoured its breakfast.
Appearance
The Cooper’s hawk (Astur cooperii), named for the New York ornithologist William C. Cooper in 1828, is a crow-sized raptor. Strikingly handsome, fully mature adults sport steel-blue plumage on their backs, contrasting with reddish barring on the underside. They have a black cap contrasting with a pale nape and ruby-red eyes. Their long tails are adorned with wide black bands. Juvenile birds with their yellow eyes have an all-brown appearance, with tawny backs and fine streaks on their breasts. There is a marked difference in size between the sexes, with females being a hefty one-third larger than their mates. When crossing expansive areas, Cooper’s hawks rarely flap continuously but rather display a distinctive flap-flap glide, flap-flap glide pattern.
Cooper’s hawks are often confused with their smaller look-alike cousin, the sharp-shinned hawk (Accipiter striatus). At a glance, the two species appear identical, but the “sharpie” is closer in size to a blue jay. To make matters even more confusing, female sharp-shinneds, again, larger than the males, are closer in size to male Cooper’s. It takes some practice to learn the subtle field marks that differentiate between the two species. For me, the answer lies in the shape of their tails. Sharp-shinned hawks have a “sharp” squared-off tail at the tip, while Cooper’s hawks have a smooth rounded tail, like the letter “C” (C for Cooper’s) tipped over on its back.
The distinct silhouette of the Cooper’s hawk presents a bird with short, rounded wings and a long tail, the mark of the Accipiter family (although this hawk was officially moved from the genus Accipiter to Astur in 2024). This classic physique allows the hawk to perform amazing maneuverability stunts at high rates of speed, using their tail as a rudder for acrobatic twists and turns. The clever Cooper’s perch in dense cover when hunting, relying on the element of surprise to pursue and overtake their prey, their anatomy allowing them to nimbly maneuver through thick shrubbery and branches.
Diet
Cooper’s hawks dine on a variety of different prey items including rabbits, squirrels, mice and other rodents. But it is their taste for birds that causes them to be loathed by so many. Lots of raptors eat birds, and we don’t seem to have a problem with that, but it is the way in which the Cooper’s hawk executes its kills that can be horrifying to some. After surprising and nabbing its avian meal, the Cooper’s hawk commonly sits where it lands, awaiting the bird squeezed in its sharp talons to perish. Then, with its sharp, hooked beak, it begins tearing away at the body, plucking feathers and spitting them out in all directions. It then pulls its meal apart, consuming it in small morsels. If there is snow on the ground the shocking scene is accentuated by a spattering of blood stains.
We have maintained a flock of chickens for nearly 30 years. The decision to allow them to roam free on our farm wasn’t a difficult one. Research has shown that free-range eggs are much healthier for you than those from penned-up birds. Our free-range chickens love their freedom. They are happy, healthy birds. Yet “free-range” comes with a price. Although we lock our birds up in their coop every night to protect them from nocturnal predators, daytime threats are always present, and we accept that. It is a chance we are willing to take, and we compensate for our losses by ordering extra chicks or allowing a hen to brood and hatch a family of her own once in a while.
There are several hawk species that dine on chicken here: red-tailed hawks, red-shouldered hawks and Cooper’s hawks. Juvenile Cooper’s like to hone their hunting skills during their first winters by targeting easy prey such as chickens. I often see them running around on the ground chasing our birds, even determinedly entering the coop in hot pursuit. As I look out the window toward the barn one morning, I see a Cooper’s hawk devouring one of our chickens. I grab my binoculars. “Oh cool, look at the Cooper’s hawk going to work. Oh dear … I wonder which chicken that was.”
Banding
I have captured Cooper’s hawks while bird banding. As targeted birds hang in my mist nets awaiting extraction, their movements attract the hawks who come swooping in for an easy meal, only to find themselves in the net. Juvenile Cooper’s hawks often get themselves in trouble when trying to obtain a meal.
In 2020, my good friend Grace called to tell me that a hawk had gotten stuck in her barn loft while pursuing pigeons. After she was finally able to nab it with a net, I went over to find an immature Cooper’s hawk and placed a band on its leg before we sent the beautiful baby on its way.
My most interesting experience with this species came while approaching a vernal pool one spring, deep within the woods, while conducting a salamander survey. As I neared the water, a pair of wood ducks launched nervously into the air. Seconds later I heard what sounded like a shot, followed by a smacking noise. I was so intrigued that I decided to investigate. Here, a young Cooper’s hawk, which obviously had been patiently awaiting the ducks’ departure, had taken out the female wood duck in midflight. After the initial hit, the two of them plummeted to earth, landing in a stream and smacking the surface of the water. The Cooper’s hawk struggled to hold the duck beneath the surface for many minutes until it finally drowned, then hoisted it up on the shore with all the might it could muster. I watched and photographed that hawk all day as it consumed the duck. It would take breaks and depart, then return to feast again. When all was said and done, the resourceful bird had left a pile of feathers and hardly a bit of waste.
Mascots
I bet most of my readers are sporting fans of some type, whether it be baseball, hockey, college football or the NFL. Have you ever taken the time to think about how many of these teams have named themselves after predators, namely birds of prey? I did a search of college teams named after raptors and here are just a few of the teams that surfaced: the Blue Hawks, the Duhawks, the Golden Eagles, the Golden Falcons, the Harriers, the Hustlin’ Owls, the Jayhawks, the Kohawks, the Marauding Eagles, the Mountain Hawks, the Purple Eagles, the Redhawks, the River Hawks, the Running Eagles, the Scarlet Hawks, the Screaming Eagles, the Skyhawks and the Thunderhawks. Then there are the NFL teams; the Seattle Seahawks, the Atlanta Falcons and the top dogs: the Philadelphia Eagles.
Teams are named after these predators because they exhibit admirable characteristics that could or should be game-winning traits. If you look back through this article, you will see adjectives describing the Cooper’s hawk such as amazing, maneuverable, speedy, determined, acrobatic, clever, surprising, nimble and patient — qualities that any team would be proud to emulate. Honestly, how can you possibly fault the Cooper’s hawk for simply applying the resourceful attributes that Mother Nature has bestowed upon it for its survival?
Lucky for us, a pair of Cooper’s hawks has nested in a huge white pine directly behind our house for the past six years. They are extremely secretive but just last week I heard the distinct nasal kek-kek-kek-kek call of the male. I felt goosebumps on my arms and the excited prospect of another year with the chipmunk population kept in check and, well, the loss of another chicken or two.
