Bob Gilreath says when all your finches disappear from your feeders, look up. Yup there he is! A Cooper’s Hawk and the smaller birds like finches know to go hide when one comes around. They aren’t rare, but they don’t visit bird feeders for the seed, they visit to snatch a bird or a squirrel. The are quite stealthy, and smaller than other common hawks like the red-tailed, so your eye might skip over them in flight. If a Cooper’s Hawk comes around your feeders and sticks around, terrorizing the other small birds, you can take your feeders down for a few days until it moves on. Hopefully your small birds will return after they see it is gone. I asked Bob how he knew this was a Cooper’s Hawk, because the Sharp Shinned Hawk is very similar. He said he knows a “bird guy” and he asked him.

An interesting fact I learned when I looked up the Cooper’s Hawk is that males tend to be submissive to females and to listen for the reassuring call notes the females make when they’re willing to be approached. Males build the nest, then provide nearly all the food to females and young over the next 90 days before the young fledge. Hmm...I like that set-up!

Bird Watching HQ gives us a lesson on the Cooper's Hawk calls so we can identify the 3 sounds these backyard predators make!

That's so cool. And a call I don't recognize...I
got a few down pat...but for sure not this one.
VERY cool!

Very interesting pix and video! That was one lucky squirrel, I

thought it was a goner for sure.

Same thing happens here when the Red-Shoulder Hawk comes for a visit.

When our cats were outside, we watched them
like hawks (insert wink).

Like Alex, I too thought that squirrel was going to become a hawk meal. It almost appeared that the squirrel was playing Catch Me If You Can!