Cooper's Hawk
Accipiter cooperii

Identification: This medium-sized, robust hawk is 14-20 inches in length with a wingspread of 27-36 inches. Females are generally much larger than males. The wings are short and the tail is relatively long. When perched it often raises its hackles, giving it a crested appearance. Adults have blue-gray upperparts, a white breast and belly with redish cross bars and a black cap or crown. The tail is usually rounded and crossed by four or more obscure blackish bars. Immature birds exhibit brown upperparts and a white breast and belly streaked with brown. The Cooper's Hawk is easily distinguished in flight by its habit of circling rapidly while alternately flapping and gliding.

Range & Habitat: A woodland species found in both wilderness forests and farm woodlots, the Cooper's Hawk can be seen from southern Canada over much of the United States, except the central plains, south to Florida and Texas.

Reproduction: This hawk nests in both pine and hardwood groves in a platform of sticks and twigs lined with bark, sometimes using the old nest of a crow. Four to five white to greenish-white eggs, occasionally spotted with brown, are laid and incubated mostly by the female for about 24 days.

Diet: Although the Cooper's Hawk will occasionally consume small mammals, it feeds primarily on songbirds birds-flickers, woodpeckers, mourning doves, meadowlarks, robins, quail and blue jays-and is known to take young songbirds out of their nests. On occasion, this solitary hawk has been known to eat its mate, giving it a reputation as the black widow of the bird world. Dashing through the woods in low, swift flight, around trees and through bushes, it captures surprised prey in its talons. After catching its victim, the Cooper's Hawk sometimes flies with its prey to water in order to drown it.

Remarks: During the 1950s and 1960s, when many of the songbirds and other prey of the Cooper's Hawks were ingesting DDT and similar pesticides, the reproductive success of this raptor was poor. An apparent reversal of this trend over the past two decades has strengthened their numbers. The Cooper's Hawk is fierce and bold in attacks on farm poultry, earning it the nickname the "chicken hawk".