Immature Cooper's Hawk

An immature Cooper’s Hawk has been hanging around beside the house for the past week.  Its usual perch is atop the stump of a limb rising from the body of a downed Silver Maple.  This puts the hawk in plain sight about 5 feet above the ground and 15 feet from my bird feeder.

Intermittent showers from the remnants of hurricane Irma have kept the young hawk looking rather bedraggled the last two days.

The hawk is vigilant about checking out any animal movement nearby.  A pair of Cooper’s Hawks has been hunting around the bird feeder for years.  It’s possible that this bird first visited here with its parents.

This may seem like the best place to sit and wait for a meal to come by, but it doesn’t work at all.

The above is a short video highlighting some of the hawk’s behavior.  Mostly looking and preening, with a nice tail fan in the last half.  The video was filmed from inside the house, so there are no interesting nature sounds to be heard.

Feeder Birds

Two quick moving storms over the weekend brought a total of three inches of snow to Blue Jay Barrens.  Snow typically increases the number of birds visiting the feeders, so I paid particular attention to that area in hopes of seeing some new additions to the normal mob.

In order to reduce the number of deer visiting the area, I usually wait until the sun is well up before replenishing the food and water supply.  Blue Jays begin arriving at daybreak and line up in the surrounding trees to await my appearance.  If I’m delayed for any reason, they begin to get noisy.  The Jays are first to the feed and pretty much dominate the scene for the first 15 minutes. 

Blue Jays primarily utilize a grab and go technique.  Their time on the ground lasts only seconds as they take a sunflower seed or bit of corn and depart.

Most take their find directly into the apple tree beside the feeder.  Here they shell their sunflower seed or wedge their corn into a crevice where it can be broken into smaller bits.

The apple tree has a definite wild and unkept look about it.  The branches are too interwoven and closely spaced for good fruit production, but they form a tangle that makes the birds feel safe.

Mourning Doves move in once the Blue Jays have finished. 

The whole schedule can be put on hold when the Wild Turkeys show up.  Fortunately, the turkeys normally visit the feeder in late morning, so most other birds have already had a chance at the feed.

While the larger birds feed in the open, smaller species forage in a forest of dead Giant Ragweed stalks.  Although the stalks seem brittle and fragile, they have not bowed to the pressures of wind or snow. 

The birds cleaned up the ragweed seeds long ago, but I always scatter some fresh feed among the stalks.

The House Finches seem to prefer feeding among the stalks.  They will visit the feeder mounted next to the ragweed, but they tend to shy away from feeding in the open area beneath the apple tree.

 There seems to be a constant stream of birds moving between the feeder and the ragweeds.

I was expecting an increase in bird numbers because of the snow, but the arrival of a single Evening Grosbeak was the only thing that made the snow day different from any other we’ve had during the past month.

Throughout the day, the regular birds arrived at their normal times.  I guess the snow just wasn’t enough to change any normal feeding patterns.

The woodpecker tree, despite the fact that it’s now on its side on the ground, continues to attract woodpeckers.  This Hairy Woodpecker consumes sunflower seeds from the feeder, but it also spends considerable time digging for insects in the dead wood.

The arrival of the Cooper’s Hawk signals an end to the feeding activity.  If I look out the window and see no birds, it usually means that the hawk is somewhere near.  This time he was sitting atop a branch stub projecting from the downed woodpecker tree.  This is a common perch used after an unsuccessful raid.  I’m sure he would have appreciated a large congregation of birds brought in by a heavy snow.  Maybe that’s not going to happen this year.

Cooper's Hawk

A couple of years ago we replaced our old single pane/storm window combination with new double pane insulated windows.  It’s really nice to be able to see out the windows without rubbing a hole through the condensation or peering through a layer of shrink wrap window covering.  I was sitting at the breakfast table when I saw a Cooper’s Hawk streak past the window.  By the time I got out of the chair and had the hawk in view, it had finished off a Northern Flicker.

It didn’t waste any time getting down to feeding.  While it ate, I was hurriedly trying to find the best window from which to get a shot.  Our new windows are great for viewing through the naked eye, but they’re bad about camera distortion.  I knew better than to try to sneak open a window with the hawk so close to the house.

Normal yard bird activity resumed soon after the kill.  The hawk spent more time watching the surrounding activity and less feeding.

Then a Crow came in and landed in the tree to the hawk’s right. 

 

Two more Crows came in to the left of the hawk.  This was more pressure than the hawk could stand and in the second it takes for the camera to reset after a shot, the hawk lifted its kill into the air and took off.  It’s not uncommon to find a Cooper’s Hawk nest in one of the tall cedars across the field from the yard.  If I’m lucky, I’ll find one this year.

Normal Late Spring Events

My year is filled with annual events that mark each season and give a type of stability to the changing face of Blue Jay Barrens. Bird comings and goings, bloomings, hatchings, animal appearances, plant growth and decline; each event confirms my belief that the heart of Blue Jay Barrens is still strong and healthy. Box turtles will always be special to me and the spring season is full of their vigorous reclamation of life following the winter hibernation. I never tire of watching them.

Turtles are a wonder. An Eastern Box Turtle has a life span that rivals that of humans and it may live that entire life within an area no bigger than a football field. This large male shows the signs of many years spent wandering this ground. It may have been here for the last 70 or 80 years and might have witnessed plowing of the hillsides and planting of agricultural crops, along with the massive erosion that followed. I can imagine this fellow stepping out of the way of a cow’s hoof, closing up as it’s nearly run over by a log truck, feeling the ground shake beneath its shell as the farm tractor rumbles by, and being picked up and examined by several generations of children. This turtle has probably witnessed much of the site history that I’m so curious about.

Cooper’s Hawks are regulars at Blue Jay Barrens. Although they are regularly seen hunting small birds near the feeders, it’s this time of year that they are most noticeable. They become quite vocal during the nesting and young rearing period. I find an active nest about every other year, but they probably nest here every year. Most nests are high up in the tallest cedar trees and are very hard to spot from the ground. Some years they appear to use an old squirrel nest as a base and this makes it even harder to recognize from below.

Tree Swallows reenact the same performance each year. Even though they look and act the same, I’m sure they’re not the same pair. The only difference seems to be an increase in numbers. The number of returning swallows now greatly exceeds the number of available nest boxes.

The failure of the Yellow Lady’s Slipper to produce seeds is one of those annual events that I would like to change. It’s now clear that the bend in the double bloomed stalk is going to result in the withering of the flowers. I don’t know what caused the stalk to bend and then dry as this one has. I’ve seen a lot of strange things happen to this plant and this year has added a couple of new ones.

The single flower that flipped upside down is shriveling quickly. There’s probably no chance of this one producing any seed. I suppose it’s alright to put in a few disappointments as long as there are enough joys to cancel them out.