Wednesday, March 29, 2023

Nesting Cooper's Hawks

If you look very closely in this pile of sticks, you can see the red eye of the female Cooper's Hawk. Last Wednesday local birder Joan Baker while birding in the Dallas City Park photographed a pair of Cooper's Hawks building a nest. We went looking for the nest on Monday the 27th and thanks to the sharp eyes of my brother-in-law Korell Blair, we found a Cooper's Hawk but did not find the nest site.  This morning March 29 I made another attempt aided with the knowledge of the general area. First, I found the male who was doing a lot of calling, and then he flew off and the female joined him.  After a little bit of courtship display, (possibly more than courtship happened, as I was preoccupied in replacing my camera battery) she flew back to the nest. There is now no doubt to the location of the nest. The photo below shows the tree that the nest is in. We will be checking back to keep an eye on the nest. Cooper's Hawks have been successful in raising young here at the Dallas City Park in 2020 and 2022.


female

male

1 comment:

  1. Looking forward to seeing your follow up stories on this!

    ReplyDelete