{"id":169434,"date":"2025-08-08T06:12:49","date_gmt":"2025-08-08T12:12:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=169434"},"modified":"2025-08-08T07:22:41","modified_gmt":"2025-08-08T13:22:41","slug":"adventures-with-the-neighborhood-coopers-hawk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2025\/08\/08\/adventures-with-the-neighborhood-coopers-hawk\/","title":{"rendered":"Adventures With The Neighborhood Cooper’s Hawk"},"content":{"rendered":"

I swear, one day this hawk is going to land on my shoulder and nibble my ear.<\/p>\n

Fair warning. This is a long post. Maybe too long.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

For the past week or so I’ve been having almost daily close encounters with the neighborhood Cooper’s Hawk in my back yard. ‘He’ has become so acclimated to my presence in the yard he mostly ignores me, no matter how close I am.<\/p>\n

In an effort to document as many of those encounters as I can, I’ve been keeping three different cameras attached to three different lenses on my patio table. The following photos document four of those encounters and I’ll briefly describe a fifth that I wasn’t able to document with photos. I’ve labeled each encounter as to date.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

July 31:<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Late in the evening I was about to walk out my back door to turn the barbecue on (in this photo the barbecue is against my house, just out of frame to the right) when I spotted him on the lower railing of my old, mostly unused and unmaintained deck. This photo was taken at only 44mm (that’s almost wide angle) from my open door while I was still inside my house – you can see the door frame on both sides of the photo.<\/p>\n

Obviously, he was very close but he paid no attention to me. He was hunting the sparrows at my feeder (at upper left in this photo) and he was so engrossed in the hunt I could barely get him to look at me.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I got a few more photos of him while standing in my doorway, including…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

a few head shots taken with my mid-focal length lens.<\/p>\n

But after about 10 minutes I remembered I still hadn’t fired up the barbecue so I stepped out of my house and walked toward the barbecue, and him – fully expecting him to take off. But he didn’t. We were less than 8′ from each other but he was still focused on my feeder, and the sparrows that had buried themselves in my grapevine behind the feeder. He didn’t even fly off when I repeatedly used the igniter to start my barbecue, which is obnoxiously loud.<\/p>\n

We both maintained our positions for about five more minutes, with him looking at my feeder and me pointing two different lenses at him.<\/p>\n

Eventually he wanted a different hunting angle on the feeder so he…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

flew about 6′ to the corner of my upper deck railing and hunted my feeder from there.<\/p>\n

At one point I became concerned that his unusual accepting behavior might be a result of him crashing into the glass of my patio door while chasing a sparrow. Fearing he might be stunned or injured, I hollered at him and waved my arms but all he did was look at me once and then go back to staring at my feeder.<\/p>\n

By now I was barbecuing dinner (ribs) so I had my back to him. Eventually, when I turned around to look at him again, he was gone.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

It’s probably hard for readers to put all this in perspective so the next morning I took this photo, hoping it would help.<\/p>\n

For most of the above series of photos I was standing in my open patio door while the hawk was perched where I’ve placed the black “X”. Toward the end he flew to the upper railing where I’ve placed the black “Y”. My barbecue is against my house, about halfway between the “X” and the open door. My feeder and grape vines are in the foreground at left.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

August 2:<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Soon after sunrise two days later I saw him fly into the grapevine after a sparrow. I could hear him crashing around in the vine and occasionally I saw a wing or his tail appear for a moment through the leaves as he chased prey in the vine. He came up empty, which is when he flew a few feet to the roof of a kid’s fort that my friend and neighbor Shane built for his young boy.<\/p>\n

From here he hunted the grape vine below and in front of him for several more minutes. Once again, I was very close but he didn’t give a damn. All he cared about was finding breakfast.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I lost focus on him when he dived on the vine after a sparrow, but you get the idea. Here we have our first look at a feather on his back that he broke while chasing sparrows in the vine.<\/p>\n

Once again, he didn’t catch a sparrow in the vine. I know that because…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

he came out of the vine and landed on the roof of my storage shed, empty handed (footed). From here he flew across my yard to…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

one of my Catalpa trees. Soon he flew off to hunt elsewhere.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

This photo illustrates why the roof of Shane’s fort is such an excellent hunting perch for the hawk. It overlooks the grape vine behind my feeder, where the sparrows seek refuge when the hawk shows up.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

August 3:<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

I was unable to get any photos to document this encounter, but it was so memorable for me I decided to describe it briefly.<\/p>\n

Soon after sunrise I was sitting on my deck trying to photograph hummingbirds at my trumpet vine when I heard the sound, and felt the rush of air, from large flapping wings directly over my head. This time the Coop had approached my feeder from the south, flying very low so he could use my rose bushes as cover as he approached the feeder.<\/p>\n

When I heard and felt the rush of air I looked up from my viewfinder just in time to see the Coop flying about 3′ over my head. He knew I was there but he just didn’t care, not when breakfast was at stake.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

August 4:<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I looked out my patio door and there he was again – this time closer than ever before and he already had a sparrow in his talons. To help with perspective, I’ve placed a red “X” where he was perched in my first encounter, above. When I opened my door to take these photos he looked at me for a few seconds and then went back to eating.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Eventually he took off with what was left of the sparrow and landed in one of Shane’s trees before finishing his meal.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

August 5:<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Late in the evening when I walked by my feeder to get something out of my shed, the Coop was on the other side of my grapevine. When he heard me close, but couldn’t see me, it spooked him so once again he flew to my Catalpa tree on the far side of my yard. He was buried in the tree but when I got my lens on him I could see that he’d caught and was eating another sparrow.<\/p>\n

As you can imagine, I’ve become quite fond of this hawk. So fond that I’ve named him Gary. Older readers can probably guess why I chose that name.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I swear, one day this hawk is going to land on my shoulder and nibble my ear. (13 photos)<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":169436,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[334,380,392],"tags":[7874,7876,7875],"class_list":["post-169434","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-birds","category-coopers-hawk-diurnal-raptors","category-feeding-bird-behaviors","tag-a-very-tolerant-coopers-hawk","tag-coopers-hawk-hunting-technique","tag-gary-cooper"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/coopers-hawk-1470-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-I4O","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169434","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=169434"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169434\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":169492,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169434\/revisions\/169492"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/169436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=169434"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=169434"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=169434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}