Cooper's Hawk

About the Cooper's Hawk

The Cooper's Hawk is the backyard birds' nightmare - a crow-sized accipiter built for ambush, with short rounded wings and a long rudder of a tail that let it thread through trees at full speed. Adults are blue-gray above with rusty-barred underparts and fierce red eyes; young birds are brown with crisp streaking below. Females are noticeably larger than males, a common raptor pattern taken to an extreme in accipiters.

Cooper's Hawks hunt birds almost exclusively, and their signature move is the surprise attack: a low, concealed approach behind a hedge or fence line, then a sudden burst into a flock of doves or sparrows. They are relentless around feeders - which, from the hawk's point of view, are simply bait piles. Prey is gripped and squeezed rather than bitten, and a hunting Cooper's will even chase birds on foot through brush.

Once heavily shot as "chicken hawks" and later hit hard by DDT, Cooper's Hawks have rebounded spectacularly and are now among the most successful urban raptors in America, nesting in city parks and neighborhood oaks. The move to town came with a diet shift toward doves and grackles - both in generous supply in Texas cities.

In Texas the Cooper's Hawk is a year-round resident and a common winter visitor statewide, when northern birds pour in. The sudden, total silence of a busy feeder - every bird frozen or vanished - is usually the surest sign that one is perched nearby.