Accipiter cooperii
Cooper’s Hawks are medium sized raptors with dark blue-gray backs, white underparts with many fine rufous bars, dark caps, red eyes, long tails with black and white banding.
Two days ago, while I was photographing some Rock Squirrels, I saw a beautiful immature Cooper's Hawk fly in and land in a tangle of trees near the squirrels.
As the sun was setting on the last day of 2023, the last bird I saw was a neighborhood Cooper's Hawk. I shared that sighting with my neighbor, Shane, and his son, Kadence.
Do you remember playing I Spy when you were a child? I do.
When I first moved to Utah in 2009 I never expected to be able to do urban raptor photography from my living room window.
This is my 2020 photographic year in review. I'm selecting some of my favorite photos from 2020 and a few that just make me happy to see them.
Think carefully before you make a trip to Utah to photograph our overwintering Bald Eagles in the valley. The inversions are awful and can be life threatening.
It does not matter where I am or what I am doing, I am never not looking for birds.
The first bird I photographed yesterday morning was an immature Cooper's Hawk that I found because I spotted a Red-tailed Hawk on a cliff face that the young accipiter decided to harass.
Sometimes raptors can look deadly serious and intense, especially when they are watching, diving on or consuming prey but they can appear to look a little goofy too.
I couldn't have asked for a better birdy subject yesterday morning than this relaxed and cooperative immature Cooper's Hawk and I loved the setting it was in too.
Spotting this immature Cooper's Hawk resting in sagebrush yesterday was the highlight of my morning and even though the setting is messy I like that it shows this young hawk in the habitat this species can be found in.
I like to share some of the views I see while I am out wandering to look for birds because the scenery and different habitats I see at times are simply spectacular.
Then the noise suddenly stopped and I saw the silhouette of a European Starling fly out of the tree with the Cooper's Hawk hot on its tail, literally.
I know, I could grumble about not being able to photograph the young Cooper's Hawk taking its prey down just feet away from my Jeep but you know what? Being there to see nature in action was enough for me.
There are days when one bird can "make" the day great for me as a bird photographer, yesterday that bird was a Cooper's Hawk in a Wasatch Mountain canyon east of Salt Lake City.
It was a bitter cold January morning in 2016 when I photographed this Cooper's Hawk on prey that I found not far from where I live.
The Cooper's Hawk took flight without much warning at all and for a second I lost it while tracking the hawk but regained focus as it flew south past me.