[Birdtalk] A Mystery Solved

[Kristin Purdy]

Last week Ed Gardiner reported possible Peregrine Falcons nesting in his backyard in Ogden, which abuts the mountains to the east. I couldn't let such an intriguing report pass without investigating. 

I contacted Ed and prior to my visiting, together we figured out that his backyard raptors were Cooper's Hawks. The birds actually nested in dense scrub oak and both adults and young have provided the Gardiner family with the finest wildlife watching experience. 

While the female was still on the nest, the adults' prey exchange location was in a tree along the back border of the yard. The male would fly in and call the female off the nest. She'd meet him there; he'd leave the prey with her and they get out of Dodge fast like he was afraid of her. The female would then take the prey away from the tree, presumably back to the nest, which is not visible from the yard. 

The young have since fledged and there are four. On the night I visited Ed and his wife Darla, we sat out on their deck and watched or listened to the young birds while they moved about the dark grove of oak, mew a tiny baby call that sounds like it should come from a much smaller bird than a raptor, and pluck at a prey item on a more open horizontal scrub oak branch. 

The young birds are not wary of humans. We didn't see the adults at all, but I believe they are still in the area delivering prey to their young.

My previous experience with young Cooper's Hawks at nest sites both this year and last has been similar in that the birds are quite unwary. They'll let you approach as close as 20 feet or they may approach you. This, of course, is not true of the adults; the adults are alarmed and will stoop on humans that approach the nest site until the young fledge. 

The Gardiners live less than three-quarters of a mile from me as the Cooper's Hawk flies. The proximity of their hawks may solve a mystery that's been nagging me this spring and summer--where were the Cooper's Hawks nesting that I've seen in my yard and cutting through the neighborhood? I ended a previous post about a Cooper's in my yard about a month ago with this conclusion:

"I'm also encouraged to know that a pair of Cooper's Hawks might be nesting in my neighborhood. I saw a Cooper's several times early in the nesting season and haven't seen one again until this morning. This species' willingness to nest in neighborhoods and city parks is quite welcome in my book. Increasingly, we don't have to wait until they raid our feeders in the winter to get a good close look."

My husband told me I should have asked the Gardiners if I saw the Cooper's carrying 15 baby quail into their yard. When I reported the Cooper's back in late June, 15 quail had just hatched in our yard. Two days later I saw a set of quail parents with just five young; a week later I saw parents with no young. I haven't seen young quail in the yard since.

Kris  
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