by Leslie Cox; Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Was on the phone recently when something substantial caught the corner of my eye as it flew past the living room window and landed on the front porch railing. From where I was sitting, I could just make out its tail as it was ruffled and fluffed. Certainly not the tail of any towhee or robin…or even one of the doves that have moved into our neighbourhood.

Nope. A careful sneak up to the window after literally hanging up on my friend revealed not an eagle that had landed right close to my front door but a hawk. And just as I spied him, he flew across to the other railing.

 

Having snagged my camera on the way to the window, I managed to shoot a few quick photos. (I have been keeping my camera at the ready as you never know what you are going to see in the garden at any given time.) But the hawk was gone pretty quick. Maybe spooked by John trying to get a shot with his camera from another window.

Looking him up in our Audubon book of Western Birds, I am pretty sure our visitor was a Cooper’s hawk, (Accipiter cooperii). Seen close up as we were being treated, he looked bigger than the “crow-sized” description given in the book. However, when the excitement died down, I could concede he was probably about the sixteen inches (40.5 cm) tall mentioned in the book…although I am a lousy judge of distance/height using the “eyeball method”.

Funny thing is…I think this guy has visited my front garden before. Again, I was on the phone. This time to my mom and I hung up on her too!

(Don’t go getting the wrong impression now. I am not always on the phone. Trust me. If I was, I would never have time to write or work in my garden!)

This other visit was back when we had snow on the ground in November. The hawk was lured in by all the chatter from the small birds hanging out around our bird feeder.

Again, movement of something substantial landing in the Acer campestre (field maple tree) right in front of the living room window had caught my eye. Got up to investigate just as the bird flew into my silver maple tree (Acer saccharinum f. lacianatum).

Tried to snap some photos but it was too difficult with all the branches in the way, even for my camera’s zoom capabilities. Moved into another room hoping for a better angle but the bird had taken off. My movements, albeit from the other side of a pane of glass, must have spooked him.

Excited with this unique event, I phoned my mom back to share the news. She is quite familiar with the Cooper’s hawk as my parents used to get hawks landing in their show garden in Victoria quite frequently. Lured by the resident mallards…but that is a story for a blog entry another time.

Talking to my mom, I noticed small birds intermittently whizzing past the window. Three even hit the window, one with some force. Wondering what was up, I again went to the front window…just in time to see the hawk pop out from under my large rhododendron shrub and onto the path.

Stood there with the phone to my ear…the hawk and I staring each other straight in the eye for a few seconds before he flew off. Wow! Like we were only about eight feet (2.5 m) apart. Not an experience one gets every day.

Now…if only that hawk will come back and nab the bunny that is living under another big rhodo in the front. The one that is nibbling on some of my choice plants as they are beginning to poke their noses out of the ground.

Molly sure knows when the bunny has been making its rounds of my garden but, unfortunately, our old Bernese Mountain Dog just doesn’t have much chase left in her.