Economy got you down?  Looking for ways to save your hard earned do-re-mi?  Thinking of cutting back or cutting off birdseed altogether?  Let them fend for themselves, right?

But wait! Try the new Sharpienator.  One sharpie used only once or twice a day will solve that bird food drain on your scarce resources.  And it is Absolutely Free! You can’t buy the Sharpienator in any store.  But wait.  There’s more!

So, you get the idea.  When the last snows started to melt the action at my feeders returned quickly to null and void.  I am used to having a coops cruise the place on a regular basis.  This year it’s a handsome and very stealthy adult male.  But very little birds manage to visit the feeders anyway.  Goldfinches and such.  Chickadees will scold a Cooper’s Hawk.  At sparrow size all this changes.  They are big enough and slow enough to not risk exposure to a stalking Cooper’s Hawk.

Today it became very clear why even the little guys were not around.  I mean, like, gone, absent from class.  The following sharpie photos were taken in an apple tree that is usually the last stop for birds before they approach my feeders.  He just sat there, alertly monitoring any action in the area.  The last shot of the series below, while not a good bird photograph, shows the hawk in sight of flying prey and just about to launch after it.  Note the complete streamlining of its body feathers from a pose of observation to one of ignition for pursuit.   Also the relative proportion of the head to the body has altered considerably.

Attention wandering:

Attention in the wrong place:

Resigned:

Disinterested:

Interested:

Very interested:

Birds are cool!  Lanny

These images and Avian Art fine art prints are available for purchase. Contact me or View my gallery.

I have a list of folks who get an emailed notice from me with a URL to click on when I have posted a new blog.  There are also times when I just send out photos to the list without bothering to blog about them or post them to a listserve.  Not on the list?  Want to be? Just contact me  saying you want to be on the list or, better yet,  subscribe to Feedburner above, in the right side column for automatic blog feeds to your email.  Getting off the list is just as simple.

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The young Cooper’s Hawks at the nest near Abel’s Hill in Chilmark on Martha’s Vineyard are up and out and lounging in adjacent trees.  The last time I was there, on July fifth, the female allowed herself to be seen, keeping a quiet eye on things, then audibly admonishing her brood, or maybe me, from deeper back in the oak forest.  I had never seen her before.  I have never seen the male; and so I have never been aware of more than one adult.  Of course, I could be mistaken, if the two adults are close in size.

In the dappled light of the woods it is pretty hard to make out any of these raptors when they are still, especially if you don’t have advanced knowledge of where to look.  But, boy, are they nice to watch when you do find them.

I do not really expect to find them near the nest,  should I go back.  There is too much to see and do … and to eat.

1st sighting of the adult female after she cruised out of the woods:

so easy to miss back in the woods

One thing you notice right away, looking at the young hawks, is that they are armed with adult weaponry:

A gray squirrel making his rounds tentatively approached one of the young Coops, not the best idea with one of the parents nearby.  When it got close enough, the youngster flared its wings and the encounter ended with the squirrel parting company.

so young and so serious

This Madonna, short of there being a Great Horned Owl in the neighborhood, which I doubt, will have fledged four new hawks into the growing company of Cooper’s Hawks established on Martha’s Vineyard.

These images and Avian Art fine art prints are available for purchase. Contact me or View my gallery.

Birds are cool!  Lanny

I have a list of folks who get an emailed notice from me with a URL to click on when I have posted a new blog.  There are also times when I just send out photos to the list without bothering to blog about them or post them to a listserve.  Not on the list?  Want to be? Just contact me  saying you want to be on the list or, better yet,  subscribe to Feedburner above, in the right side column for automatic blog feeds to your email.  Getting off the list is just as simple.

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It has been a bonanza year for raptor nests on the Vineyard. I have been keeping an eye on a Cooper’s Hawk nest not too far from the Lagoon in Vineyard Haven and also one up in Chilmark.  There are three chicks in each of these,  growing up fast.  There are four active Cooper’s Hawk nests that I am aware of this year on Martha’s Vineyard.   Some young have already fledged and some are still mostly fuzzy white.

There may be, and probably are,  more breeding Cooper’s Hawks.  Maybe some of the Vineyard’s Breeding Bird Atlasers will get back to me on this.  One friend of mine insists there is a Sharp-shinned nest on his property, but we differ as to the raptor ID.  It almost goes without saying that Ospreys and Red-taileds abound.  Harriers are another matter.  They are here, for sure, and nesting, but it can be hard to pin down just how many nests there are.  This year at least, there is a dedicated and persistent  group of observers doing just that at locations along the South Shore of the Vineyard.There is no reason for me to know how many Cooper’s Hawk nests there are in total, but the four I mentioned have been called to my attention in conversations or emails with people who think I might be interested.  It turns out that I am.  Thanks to the observant folks who turned me on to the nests.

First, two distant, and I mean looooong, shots of the down-island Coop’s nest:

Now, some up close and personal ones from Chilmark:

These images and Avian Art fine art prints are available for purchase. Contact me or View my gallery.

Birds are cool!  Lanny

I have a list of folks who get an emailed notice from me with a URL to click on when I have posted a new blog.  There are also times when I just send out photos to the list without bothering to blog about them or post them to a listserve.  Not on the list?  Want to be? Just contact me saying you want to be on the list or, better yet,  subscribe to Feedburner above, in the right side column for automatic blog feeds to your email.  Getting off the list is just as simple.

No related posts.

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