{"id":53933,"date":"2017-11-26T05:38:08","date_gmt":"2017-11-26T12:38:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=53933"},"modified":"2017-11-26T08:31:00","modified_gmt":"2017-11-26T15:31:00","slug":"three-coopers-hawks-with-prey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2017\/11\/26\/three-coopers-hawks-with-prey\/","title":{"rendered":"Three Cooper’s Hawks With Prey"},"content":{"rendered":"

Several comments on yesterday’s post<\/a> (from James Marsh and Louise Shimmel\u00a0in particular)\u00a0about the value of wildlife in urban landscapes were the inspiration for today’s post.<\/p>\n

Readers know that for my photography I prefer natural settings but I love seeing wildlife anywhere and that includes urban landscapes. As I pondered yesterday’s discussion\u00a0my thoughts eventually\u00a0turned to the Cooper’s Hawks I’ve photographed in my own yard and neighborhood over the years and I thought at least some of my readers might enjoy seeing photos I’ve taken of these accipiters where the settings include\u00a0pavement, mowed lawns\u00a0and even roofing shingles.<\/p>\n

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1\/1600, f\/7.1, ISO 320, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 100-400mm f\/4.5-5.6L IS II USM @ 400 mm, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

On March 10 of\u00a0this year as I was I was driving through my neighborhood on my way to buy groceries I found this Cooper’s Hawk on a freshly killed pigeon on the side of the road. For security reasons I never carry my most expensive camera gear with me when I have to leave my pickup but I always carry my smaller zoom lens and it sure came in handy on this occasion.<\/p>\n

Because I was worried about this hawk being on the road I deliberately got quite close to it and flushed it to a safer spot but pigeons are very large prey for this species and it really struggled to carry\u00a0the pigeon\u00a0in flight. It managed but just\u00a0barely. This is a juvenile female and that’s a good thing because I’m sure a much smaller male would never have been able to become airborne with the heavy pigeon and it would have been reluctant to leave the street without it (which would have been a recipe for disaster on\u00a0that busy street).<\/p>\n

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1\/320, f\/5, ISO 2000, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

On mornings when I go out photographing birds I usually leave in the dark to arrive at my destination by dawn and January 1, 2016 was no exception. I had only driven a few feet from my driveway\u00a0before we spotted this adult Cooper’s Hawk finishing off a Mourning Dove on a neighbor’s lawn. It was so dark I almost didn’t even\u00a0attempt to take photos but you know me…<\/p>\n

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1\/125, f\/5.6, ISO 2500, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM , + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

The hawk seemed to pay particular\u00a0attention to the dove’s leg and foot but to be honest I can’t remember if it was discarded or swallowed.<\/p>\n

This was the soonest I’ve ever photographed a bird after leaving my house on a\u00a0bird photography\u00a0trip. I hope my early success\u00a0that morning was a harbinger of things to come later\u00a0in the\u00a0day but to be honest that’s something else I can’t remember. Gettin’ old you know…<\/p>\n

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1\/2000, f\/8, ISO 400, Canon Digital Rebel XTi, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS\u00a0USM + EF 1.4 Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

For a variety of reasons this was an incident I’ll never forget.<\/p>\n

Back in July of 2007 I was an absolute beginner at bird photography. I’d only had my brand new 500mm lens for a few days so I had it set up on my tripod (also brand new) in my back yard as I worked in my vegetable garden, hoping to gain some experience with my new gear if an interesting bird appeared while I was working.<\/p>\n

Suddenly I heard a “whoomph” sound and when I looked up this Cooper’s Hawk with a struggling Mourning Dove in its talons dropped out of the sky and landed nearly at my feet in the garden, only about 10′ away from where I was standing with my mouth hanging\u00a0open in astonishment. The hawk and I stared at each other for a few moments and then as I slowly backed off toward my nearby camera and lens on the tripod the hawk flew with the dove to my roof where I was able to get a few shots with my ugly TV satellite dish in the background.<\/p>\n

This was a very poignant scene. The dove’s wing is in a vertical position and its head is slightly off the roof\u00a0because the bird is still (barely) alive and\u00a0in its death throes. I watched through my lens\u00a0as\u00a0the wing slowly descended to a relaxed position as the dove died. Seeing it die so dramatically was difficult for me and it once again impressed on me the reality of the struggle for survival.<\/p>\n

So yes, I do appreciate the opportunities for survival that urban and suburban\u00a0habitats can provide for our wild critters and I enthusiastically\u00a0support programs like the National Wildlife Federation’s Certified Wildlife Habitat Program<\/a> in urban and suburban neighborhoods.<\/p>\n

That said, I still prefer natural settings for my photography.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

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

Several comments on yesterday’s post about the value of wildlife in urban landscapes were the inspiration for today’s post.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":53934,"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":[334,380,8,392],"tags":[2323,3685,95,656,3684,3328,256,3089,311],"class_list":["post-53933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-birds","category-coopers-hawk-diurnal-raptors","category-ecology-and-environment","category-feeding-bird-behaviors","tag-accipiter-cooperii","tag-certified-wildlife-habitat-program","tag-coopers-hawk","tag-mourning-dove","tag-national-wildlife-federation","tag-pigeon","tag-prey","tag-salt-lake-county","tag-utah-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/coopers-hawk-0612-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-e1T","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53933","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=53933"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53933\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53934"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}