This young Cooper’s Hawk showed up at breakfast time recently. It terrorized the finches for a while but in the end, I was the only one that got breakfast.
Tag Archives: raptor
Last week, when I was in the Okanogan Highlands, I had a chance to watch and photograph Northern Harriers. Their previous name is Marsh Hawk and I don’t know why it was changed. Marsh Hawk is a fitting description as they are often seen flying over marshes and open fields, hunting for prey. They are a beautiful hawk with an owl-like face. These birds are probably juveniles and maybe an adult female. The adult males are gray with similar markings and sometimes referred to as the grey ghost.
This Sharp-shinned Hawk visited the feeders in a snow storm earlier this week. It has been coming around for a while. All the little birds scatter when the hawk arrives.
This is a Red-tailed Hawk. Redtails, as they are commonly called, come in a variety of colors but most have similar patterns that ought to make them easy to identify. For beginning birders, they do present challenges. This bird is a light colored, first year bird. It was born last spring. The next time it molts (replaces its feathers) it will have a distinctive red tail which will make it easier to identify. Sometimes Redtails are very dark and the patterns are not always obvious. It is the most commonly seen hawk in our area.
All the birds need to eat so I try not to get upset when I see a pygmy owl or an accipiter gazing at the feeder birds. Today there was a Merlin, a small falcon, quite a distance from the feeders, fifty meters or more, and all the little birds were gone for hours. A couple days ago I spotted a Cooper’s Hawk, an accipiter, in the same snag. I managed to digiscope some photos of it and then walked out of the room. I returned a few minutes later to find all the feeder birds gone and the hawk was right in the midst of the feeders. You can see she was intent on a meal of her own. I did not see if she caught anything when she blazed away.
Digiscoped pictures of the Cooper’s Hawk and the Merlin
My Everyday Photos 