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Cooper's hawk        Images © Mark A. Chappell

The Cooper's hawk is a medium-sized, slender, fast ambush hunter of birds and small mammals.   Adults (like these birds) are slate-blue above with a dark cap, yellow-orange (females) or red (males) eyes, and rusty barring below, and often have fluffy white undertail coverts setting off the long banded tail.  The species' long, slender bird-grabbing toes are apparent in some of the pictures.   I know one pair quite well; one image shows them mating in May of 2006 (note the much larger size of the female).   Several photos of flying adults show the species' long, narrow banded tail and white undertail coverts.   These pictures were taken in Palo Alto, Colusa National Wildlife Refuge, Riverside, Big Morongo reserve (all in California), Springdale, Utah, and Bosque del Apache in New Mexico.   More photos of these hawks are here and here.

  • Canon 10D,1D Mk. II, 1D3, 7D, or 1D4; 500 mm f4 IS lens plus 2X converter or 800 mm IS lens, fill-in flash for some perched images; 1.4X converter for some flight shots (2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2010, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2018)