[Birdnet] Cooper's hawks

[JIM URE]

I was walking about 2:10 on Wednesday in Wasatch Lawn Memorial Park, the cemetery that runs from Highland Drive and 34th South east to my home on Honeycut Rd.  

A male house finch was warbling his courtship song from a flowering tree about a hundred feet away.   

Quite suddenly there was an explosion of white blossoms and emerging from this storm streaked an adult male Cooper's hawk, carrying something in his talons.  Since the calling of the house finch had ceased quite abruptly, I assume that was the object he gripped.   

He pulled up into an un-leafed sycamore and started pluming his prey, uttering a kik every few seconds.  Within a few minutes I saw another accipiter approaching.   As it glided low, then lifted to land on a nearby branch in the same tree, I could see it was the the larger female Cooper's, confirming my guess on the sex of the first bird.  

The headshapes were definitely that of a Coop.   

The ungracious male consumed the whole house finch while the female waited patiently.  Then she flew into a nearby pine, followed by the male. 

I have watched one of these birds circling around mid-day, perhaps 1,000 feet above the cemetery, since early this month.  

This was in the Latona section of Wasatch Lawn.  I think they will nest in the line of pines along the south side, as I've seen Coops in there in past years.  

Lovely day for a little drama. 
Jim Ure



www.jimure.com
jimure at comcast.net
801 467 0893
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