November marks the end of songbird migration for most species, so unless you’re out on the beaches, where things are just starting to get interesting, the dry land birding gets pretty slow around now. Most warblers, vireos, tanagers, catbirds, hummingbirds, and orioles are in Central and South America already, or at least well on their way. I’m finding my neighborhood painfully quiet in the mornings. Luckily, an old friend of a rarity, a famous bird of prey, just reappeared to make things interesting again.
But it was a different bird of prey, a more expected one, that got me thinking this week. As I stood at my kitchen sink on Monday morning I noticed a brownish something streak past right at ground level. It was so fast - a beige blur – that I had no real indication if this was animal or vegetable. But I had a hunch what it was. Sure enough, there was the young Cooper’s Hawk in a tree above the feeders, completely still and perfectly camouflaged in its late fall color palette.
It stayed just long enough for me to grab the camera, focus on its murderous, burning yellow eyes, and fire off a few shots before it rocketed off to kill some unsuspecting bird, probably a Mourning Dove based on the piles of feathers I typically see. Though a Cooper’s Hawk killed a crow in my yard once, which made for a brutal scene – the hawk stood on the chest of its vanquished prey, blood on its bill. Cooper’s Hawks are pretty medieval.
It’s now common to see Cooper’s Hawks hunting birds in suburban neighborhoods, but it hasn’t always been so. DDT, shooting, and forest loss all took their toll last century, but with the banning of DDT and shooting, plus the regrowth of forests, they have increased exponentially in my lifetime. Years ago, the smaller but very similar Sharp-shinned Hawk was the vdefault accipiter hawk in migration and winter, but with the recovery of Cooper’s Hawks, plus a behavioral change in Sharp-shins called “short-stopping”, wherein they don’t come as far south in winter now, their roles have switched – I see at least ten Cooper’s Hawks for every Sharp-shin these days.
My Cooper’ hawk encounter had me thinking about another species they’re linked to – American Kestrels. These small, colorful falcons of open country have been declining almost as fast as Cooper’s Hawks have increased. The reasons are somewhat mysterious, but predation of kestrels by ever more abundant Cooper’s Hawks has been convincingly demonstrated as a likely cause. I witnessed a Cooper’s Hawk hunting the last brood of kestrels we ever fledged at Mass Audubon’s Wellfleet Bay sanctuary about 15 years back, and we haven’t had any nesting there since.
Oh, and that rare and famous bird of prey I teased in the lede? It’s the Crested Carcara, the uber unexpected southern visitor that’s been appearing and disappearing since July, most recently it had a multi-week residency in Wellfleet, then disappeared again, and last seen by my kids and in in Harwich back in mid-October. No one saw it after me, and I didn’t get a photo since I was driving, which always raises suspicion, so I’m glad this premium bird turned up again not too far away. It was at Morris Island in Chatham on Monday. No one saw it yesterday but hopefully it settles in.
The rarities are fun, but you’ll get a lot more mileage from your birdwatching by appreciating the common species, like that neighborhood Cooper’s Hawk and its web of connections to other species. Every backyard bird has a story to tell if you listen. But if you’re another bird, you probably won’t like the story the Cooper’s Hawk has to tell, since, spoiler alert, it ends with you being dinner.
