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Project Noah Nature School
Accipiter cooperii
This adult hawk (Sharp-shinned Hawk?) swooped right over my head while I was shooting a Flycatcher in a nearby tree. It caught a gray rodent and flew to a tree. I followed it and took more pics. A juvenile hawk ended up taking the prey but they didn't fight but rather sat on a branch together. Last image shows them together. Mother / child? The video shows it eating the rodent and making a chirping noise.
Mixed Oak forest and grassy prairie near Riparian area.
The juvenile hawk can be seen at my other spotting: http://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/105...
Oh, the one that I thought was a juvenile is on the right in last image that this spotting is for. The rest of this series is of this, smaller one. This is the one that caught the prey that can be seen on the video.
I should clarify, female raptors are usually larger than the males.
I should also clarify that raptors aren't sexually dimorphic, so this isn't a female plumage, but a subadult plumage. I don't doubt she's sexually mature, though.
The "juvenile" is a young female. Note how much larger than the male she appears in the last photo. I suspect they're portraying courtship behavior.
Thanks for the ID Liam! What do you think about the relationship between this one and the adult?
Spotted on Apr 24, 2012
Submitted on Apr 24, 2012
+1
