Yesterday about 7am, returning to the house with the dog, as I turned the corner to the open garage door, a Cooper's Hawk flew out, I think from a perch (that is, he wasn't just flying in and then back out). He/she landed on an ornamental tree right in front of the house briefly, turned and eyeballed me and doggie, then decided to beat feet as we were only 20' away.
Now, I'm an amateur and I know Sharpies are quite similar, but I reread all the ID notes on both and having ID'd a Cooper's in the back woods a couple years back by sight and his call, and another (or same) doing a surprise attack on a crow in the front yard, I'm leaning to Cooper over Sharpie. Looked rather large, distinct tail bands, curved tail profile though this was best seen in his low-level maneuvering from garage to tree then away, so maybe Sharpie tails are also curved in full flare? I know why he was there: there's a gang of House Sparrows in residence in a still-green and very thick vine we have on the front of the garage who patrol the bird-feeder on the front porch. Also, there are a few MODOs eating the corn on the porch, so one or the other was to be breakfast. What I can't figure out is what he could have found to perch on: the most likely spot near the door is the top of my tool cabinet, but it has a rather slick piece of MDF on it. Maybe the handle? Not sure, as he saw me first and flew out before I could see where he started from. The other interesting note is that the door had only been open for about 10 min since dog and me exited to begin the walk, so this was an opportunistic hawk! _________________________________________________ Chris Pelkie - 607-254-1108 - [email protected] Research Analyst - Bioacoustics Research Program Cornell Lab of Ornithology 159 Sapsucker Woods Road Ithaca, NY 14850 -- Cayugabirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsRULES ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.html 2) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/CAYU.html 3) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/Cayugabirds Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
