Thursday, July 28, 2005

Raptors.

It's true! We have a family of Cooper's hawks living in our biggest and oldest tree in the front yard: a mom, a dad and a very big baby. They have a great big nest they made out of sticks and branches from our trees. They are very quiet neighbors and we didn't even know they were there until I told Mom the other day to look up way, way, way high.


This giant nest is about 35 feet up. Posted by Picasa

Cooper's hawks belong to the accipiters genus. Do you know what's really weird about them? The girl hawks are bigger than the boy hawks! I'm glad that's not the case with us. Except for Mom, of course. She kinda needs to be bigger to take care of us.

Of course, the bad news is that Cooper's hawks prey on other birds, and they are fast enough to catch them in the air. I've never seen them fly, but we've all seen the horrible leftovers from their hunting. All told so far, there have been about a dozen sparrows and one starling. That upset us a lot. Mom was running out of places to bury them.

Two good things: I don't think they eat cats and we don't go outside anyway. Thankfully!


This is the dad. I think his name is Bob. Posted by Picasa


This is the mom. Her name is Margaret. Posted by Picasa


This is the great big baby, Emma. Posted by Picasa

6 comments:

  1. Ohhhh. Pretty birds. Too bad for the smaller birds though.

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  2. OOohhh...William, you would make a great detective on that CSI show that Momma watches on the talking box. Sad for the little birdies but how cool to be able to say you have cooper's hawks to watch! We have a peregrine falcon that lives nearby and I hear him scream every now and then.

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  3. Wow a real hawk family. That is so neat. I know they eat other birdies, but they are still very cool. No wonder you have found so many little bird parts all over. Great CSI work Wm. ~Merlin, Shadow, Ko Ko

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  4. Mystery solved - thanks William. It is too bad 'bout the poor little birdies, but my Jim said that it is "nature's way" . . . you still get cool hawks to watch! Please tell your mom that we think she is a very good picture-taker.

    Buzzerbee & meep

    p.s. we have some (tiny!) bats that fly near our windows!

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  5. How neato!!! Great pictures! How cool to have those birdies as neighbors.

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Wowee meowee.