In 1828, this hawk species was named after William Cooper, a New York scientist.  Cooper’s are medium sized birds of prey that hunt by sudden dashes from a concealed perch.

bird of prey mantling, juvenile Cooper’s Hawk

The above photo shows a Cooper’s Hawk mantling.  What is mantling?   Mantling is when birds of prey, also called raptors, hunch their shoulders and spread their wings over a kill to keep it hidden from other predators.  We have witnessed hawks mantling while feeding on the Arizona desert ground, especially in open areas.

Note the tail of the Coopers Hawk;  a rounded, long tail crossed by several dark lines with a distinct white band on the tip.

The scientific name for hawks is Falconiformes.  All hawks are classified as birds of prey and commonly called raptors.  The term raptor means to take by force or to seize.

young baby Cooper’s Hawk

This hawk eats mostly birds, but will also capture mammals including squirrels and rabbits.  In this area of the Arizona Sonoran Desert I’ve seen Cooper’s Hawks occasionally prey upon lizards.

young juvenile Coopers Hawk

Coopers Hawks breed in forested areas throughout North America.  The immature Coopers Hawk pictured above is in our yard.  This is an area along the Rincon Mountains.  Cooper’s Hawks build their nests in trees that average 25-50 feet high.  Southern Arizona contains several mountain ranges that host large areas of undisturbed forest which many raptors prefer.

young Coopers Hawk with prey

Hawk beaks are sharp and resemble the action of scissors.  The hawk’s hooked bill helps them to tear apart their prey.

First year juvenile Cooper’s hawks have yellow eyes, uniformly brown backs and brown vertical stripes on their breasts as pictured above.

older adult coopers hawk with red eyes

The older adult Cooper’s Hawk on our fence shows the tan barring on the breast, dark red eyes and the dark cap on the head.  Sometimes it appears that these older hawks have a grayish flat top look.

juvenile Coopers Hawk talons

Check out those claws, talons!  There are four, sharp talons on each of the hawk’s feet.  How strong are Cooper’s Hawks talons?  The PSI, which is pounds per square inch, is 150-200 pounds.  An average healthy man has a psi of 110.  According to the University of Michigan, the larger the raptor the stronger the talons.

The Coopers Hawk’s talons puncture their prey hard usually stabbing a vital organ causing the animal’s rapid death.

The talons are opened by leg muscles and will automatically close when the hawk impacts an object; example…. animal or perch.  It is a reflex.

young yellow eyed Coopers Hawk

Coopers Hawks have excellent vision that contain 5 times the sensory cells per millimeter of the retina than us humans.    Hawks refract certain wavelengths of light with the colored oils in their eyes.  Certain colors are intensified for the hawk at the expense of others.

red-orange eyes of coopers hawk

The light filtration of the hawk’s eyes make the browns and grays of typical prey items stand out against the filtered greens.  The orange, reddish eye color of the Coopers hawk in the picture above tells you that it is an adult hawk over 3 years old.

yellow eyes of juvenile coopers hawk

As they mature, Cooper’s Hawks change color.  After 3 years of age their eyes start to turn deep red and the Coopers Hawk’s back becomes a slate gray with brownish bars on the breast as seen below.

mature adult Cooper’s hawk

Coopers Hawk females are larger than the males.  Most birds of prey are reverse size dimorphic,  meaning that the female raptors are larger than the males.

Gray wings with tan chest red eyes is Coopers Hawk Adult

Cooper’s hawks are known to live as long as 12 years in the wild. Like many animals, Cooper’s hawks are most vulnerable when they are young.  They are monogamous, and many pairs mate for life.  Breeding is once a year with one brood per season.  Most Cooper’s hawks do not breed until they are at least two years old.

The mother Coopers Hawk lays 2 to 6 eggs.  Incubation for the baby hawks is 30-36 days. Click on the youtube video to watch a mother Cooper’s Hawk feeding her 2 week old young.

Coopers Hawk flying, wingspan

The Sharp-shinned Hawk (Accipiter striatus) looks nearly identical to the Coopers Hawk but is much smaller at just 5 ounces.  Being the smallest hawk in North America, Sharp shinned Hawks are about the size of a dove.  Cooper’s Hawks have larger heads, thicker legs and a rounded tail with a white band on the tip.  Sharp shinned hawks have skinny legs along with a squared shorter tail.

See this video to view the Sharp shinned hawk so you will be able to tell the difference from the Cooper’s Hawk.

All hawks are protected by state and federal laws. It is illegal to capture or kill a hawk, or to possess a hawk, alive or dead, without the proper permits from the state and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.  Cooper’s hawks are high level predators that help to regulate populations of their prey.

If you enjoy hawks and other birds of prey believe it or not you can adopt a raptor bird.  This is quite an interesting organization!  http://www.hawkwatch.org/gift-catalog/aah

Young Kestrel with his landing gear still down

I see him/her on a regular basis, I wish I could get closer to get some decent photos. I spotted him in the bushes a good 100 yards from the house, I opened one of the windows to get a few photos of him and then thought I’d chance my luck by going out the door to get closer but he up and left. I actually like this shot of him taking off from his precarious perch with his feet still dangling, reminds me so much of an aeroplane with it’s land gear down.

I used to 100-400 L Lens but really could have done with getting closer or getting a bigger Lens!

Map of the Narrabundah walk

Dac pointed out that there was a leaf in front of us at the carpark. It was a large leaf of doubtful utility, but pleasant:

Clockwise: the square (with leaf!) at Narrabundah shops; the mosaic in the square; fair daffodils along the way; kangaroo statue and mural at Winnunga Nimmityjah Aboriginal Health Service; and their logo and brolgas

The leaf resembles a pergola. I had to look around for that word – I was thinking “gazebo”, but they have rooves. The point of a pergola, though, is to provide a place for climbing plants. There’s no soil for plants to grow in around this one.

No plaque to be found.^[1] My later attempts to turn up information about the leaf led me to the Narrabundah Neighbourhood Plan of 2004^[2]:

Narrabundah was gazetted as a division name on 20 September 1928. Narrabundah was the last of the ‘inner southern’ suburbs to be developed. [Others] were developed in the 1920s but due to the economic situation in the 1930s and World War II … , development all but ceased. Work did not recommence on the construction of residential areas until 1947 when Narrabundah was commenced. …

Narrabundah is an Aboriginal place name and is said to mean “small hawk”. The theme for the streets of Narrabundah is indigenous names, explorers and pioneers.

So now we know. The small hawk explains the weathervane next to the leaf (top left), the mosaic in the paving (top right), and the logo of Narrabundah College:

Narrabundah College logo

It was about 2.30 pm when we started walking. We passed Winnunga Nimmityjah soon afterwards. I hadn’t known of the existence of this health service. Their logo (above, bottom left) is the Aboriginal flag with a Corroboree Frog – local, and significant to Aboriginal people in the ACT region.

We marched along, noticing houses ranging from weatherboard cottages to McMansions. We saw small signs of spring. There were people working in the yards in nearly all the houses on our side of Kootara Crescent, and many of them said hello.

Pretty soon I started falling behind. Dac told me I’d have to hurry up because the leaflet said the whole walk would take 40 minutes. I persuaded him that I was hurrying as fast as I could.

Notable sights

Dac pointed out the handsome old truck at top left – I’d walked straight past after photographing daffodils. What I did notice was a great many palm trees. Mostly those little ones with about three spiky heads, that I’d always thought were called yucca palms. (Having looked them up, I now know that I don’t know what they’re called.) But also tall ones like the one at bottom left, and big round ones like the one behind the Mustang at bottom right.

I’ve always liked Mustangs, and disliked palm trees. Perhaps I could cope with palm trees on a desert island, but not in a temperate place.

The cat (above, top right) was much further on in our walk, after I’d had a bit of a rest in a bus shelter, gazing vaguely at the house opposite – until someone suddenly pulled the blinds down! Dac played a few Scrabble moves on his iPad while waiting for me. When I spotted the cat, sunning itself on a front verandah, I tried to take a photo of it. While I was fiddling with zoom settings, it turned up at our feet. Why can’t our own cats be as friendly as that?

Further along

Clockwise explication: I took a photo of some boxes to go with the Garran box photo. Next, who could resist a bunch of galahs, especially when they stay on the ground while all the other birds fly away before you can photograph them? There were plenty of birds about. And there was a flowering gum tree, and Dac doing some pointing.

Seen in front yards

I was taken with this pebble-dash letterbox. It looks very 1950s to me, with its curving stalk. Helen and I used to have a collection of letterboxes in Chifley that we admired every time we passed them. There was an almost lifesize wrought iron stick figure holding out the letterbox on its extended hand; there was a wooden box painted yellow with red spots… Sadly, they’ve disappeared now and no interesting letterboxes are to be seen on that street. I hope to find more to collect in this blog.

The owl statue was spotted by Dac. I thought it was sitting on a mynah bird trap, but the cage had no back, so it can’t have been that. I took a picture of the notice in case the person who put it up was watching – to show them I’d noticed.

We were on the home stretch, but I managed to have another little rest along the way.

On Boolimba Crescent

We arrived at the Narrabundah allotments and community gardens. I admired the spinach and rhubarb and the olive trees – and the existence of a community. A little nook had been made in the garden on the other side of the tennis court, so I sat there for a while.

It took us a bit over an hour to arrive back at the car, finally making our way past the Dollworks Doll Shop (one of its windows full of  tiny sewing machines), the excellent Narrabundah Vinnies (an op shop run by the Society of St Vincent de Paul), and the very posh d’browes restaurant. The clouds that had lowered at us when we set out had blown away, and it was a sunny afternoon.

Footnotes

^[1]I’ve now discovered, from looking at the Wikipedia article on Narrabundah (seeking the name of the doll shop), that there was in fact a plaque:

A sculpture has been erected opposite the shopping centre with the following inscription on a plaque:

Narrabundah: A Site Marker 1998
Susie Bleach & Andrew Townsend.

This Site Marker refers to Narrabundah’s social history. Narrabundah means ‘little hawk’ in the language of the local indigenous people. The steel elements, power poles and pebble mosiac refer to the European construction workers who made Narrabundah their home in the 1950′s.

– ACT Public Art Program

^[2]Narrabundah Neighbourhood Plan: A sustainable future for Narrabundah. Prepared by the ACT Planning and Land Authority, September 2004.