I was sitting in a porch chair in front of my living room window. My most surprising - and definitely hair-raising - encounter with a hawk occurred this past April. This year, I’ve had a young Cooper’s hawk come by she was born in 2021 and seemed to be searching for something to make her day.Ībove you see her eye covered by the nictitating membrane Ultimately, she was able to put the squirrel out of its misery and she finally flew off with it to consume her meal elsewhere. While she was trying to hold onto and kill the rodent, a pair of crows began harassing her, but she held her ground. Nevertheless, she had her work cut out in subduing the squirrel. The female Cooper’s hawks are up to one-third larger in size than the males and she was a hefty individual. So unless I see rocket assists on a Sharp-shinned (maxing out at around 7 ounces) they can’t lift the full carcass of an adult EG Squirrel.” And even cargo helicopters strain to lift much more than their own weight. One commented: “Largest female Cooper’s are around 21 ounces obese Eastern Gray Squirrels are around that but most we see are little more than half that. The experts informed me that she was an exceptionally large Cooper’s hawk. Until recently, I was convinced that she was a red-shouldered hawk, but I decided to ask for confirmation from a raptor ID group on Facebook. In 2019, a hawk caught a squirrel in my yard. The sharp-shinned hawks (seen above and below) don’t seem to visit as often as the Cooper’s hawks. Size is one clue to identity with a sharp-shinned hawk averaging 10-14 inches in length (jay- or dove-sized, 25-35 cm), and a Cooper’s hawk being about crow-sized, averaging 15-20 inches long (38-51 cm). To inexperienced birders, they look very similar. The Cooper’s and sharp-shinned hawks are the most frequent visitors. The hawks whom I see often include four species that frequent my neighborhood, including my yard - the red-shouldered hawk ( Buteo lineatus), the red-tailed hawk ( Buteo jamaicensis), the Cooper’s hawk ( Accipiter cooperii) and the sharp-shinned hawk ( Accipiter striatus). Meals can last quite some time while they dismember their prey, as was the case for the barred owl above ( Strix varia) who was eating a squirrel. When raptors dine, they rarely gulp down their food. When songbirds eat insects, they dismantle and swallow them fairly quickly. While I can spend quite a while just watching them soar, build nests and care for their young, I admittedly don’t always enjoy seeing them eat. I really enjoy watching raptors and, fortunately, I see them regularly on my nature walks. It’s been quite a while since my last blog other things keep getting in the way of my writing! In any case, I’d promised you a tale of a close encounter with a hawk here it finally is!
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