Saturday, January 30, 2010

Central Park: My first Cooper's Hawk!

My sweet husband wanted to go to the park with me today, hoping to see a hawk. He had never seen one perched in a tree, only flying. My hawk sightings are far from reliable, and he didn't want to spend a lot of time in the park, so my hopes were not high. It was super cold so not a lot of activity in the park.

We saw this downy woodpecker near the start of our walk, and then moved through the ramble to the feeders.


We saw this pretty American Goldfinch there, along with several other birds that declined to pose for us. Then I heard a sound that I thought might be a squirrel alarm call, so we went towards it. It turned out to be mostly a blue jay and one lone squirrel sounding the alarm. We looked all around the squirrel and did not see a hawk, so we started watching some pretty cardinals. Then as we were turning to leave, I saw one up in a tree! There was no clear shot, this was the best picture we got. While we were maneuvering to get a better shot, a hawk flew out of the tree - apparently there had been two there, as the one we spotted was still there! I'm guessing a mated pair, to be so close together? Anyway, we were thrilled to have seen them. When the remaining hawk flew away, we turned to go home. We walked past the boathouse and looking down the path, I spotted another big bird in a tree. I could tell right away it wasn't a red tailed hawk, the tail was longer and thinner and decidedly not red. There's a picture of the bird from behind, and then the frontal view of the gorgeous Cooper's hawk. I'm thrilled that I have now seen a Cooper's Hawk, and thrilled that Jack had such sightings!

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