Hello, Today while in Denver, I spotted an adult Cooper's Hawk gathering sticks below a small group of tall spruce trees in the Park Hill neighborhood a few blocks east of the Denver Museum of Nature & Science. She then flew up into one of the trees, hopping upward from limb to limb until she reached a dense place along an upper branch, which looked to me to be a nest site. I watched for about 15 minutes as she fussed around this area, presumably arranging nesting material.
I say she because, looking around in the other trees, I spotted a much smaller Cooper's perched about 10 feet away -- presumably a male. It was interesting to see the difference in size between the two. I read in the first Colorado Breeding Bird Atlas book that Cooper's females are up to 1/3 larger than males (a greater difference than other hawk species), and this fit with what I observed. The difference was much greater than in the pair of Kestrels that nest near my house and the Bald Eagles I used to watch at Barr Lake. Until now, I've not seen this fact mentioned -- my field guides don't touch on it. The Atlas II manual gives a safe date of April 1, so I guess these birds are right on time. I showed the hawks to the homeowner, who was really pleased to have hawks nesting in his front yard. I've seen Cooper's in that neighborhood several times in the past two years but didn't realize they nested in residential areas. Cheers, Margie Joy Pueblo West, CO --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Join us at the 2009 Convention in Alamosa: http://cfo-link.org/convention/index.php You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Colorado Birds" group. To post to this group, send email to cobirds@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to cobirds+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.as/group/cobirds?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
