After seeing two Coopers Hawks in my yard yesterday (consensus was
they are male and female adult, though one's yellow eyes may tag it
as a young adult), I loaded for bear this morning. Restocked the yard
feeders, fired up a parabolic dish and audio recorder (with a 17-hour
recording capacity), got a camcorder ready and aimed at the back
yard, and got my still camera standing by. Lots of bird activity with
the new seed, including our first yard Downy Woodpecker of the year
and a fleeting appearance by a Varied Thrush. Also the usual
Black-Capped Chickadees, Dark-Eyed Juncos, Bush Tits, and a pair of Towhees.

But the morning peak came and went with no sighting of the Coopers. I
spent much of the day on the other side of the house (I work from
home) and checked the yard occasionally.

Then, around 5:30, I saw a suspicious thing: a gray blob that was
clearly a squirrel, yet not moving. A magnified look showed he was
sitting upright, hands in gnawing position (or maybe he was praying),
eyes open, and not a whisker moving. I suspected, but could not see,
any hawks. And then, in swooped the male Coopers and landed in our
neighbors yard. Ten minutes later he was being scolded by some
out-of-sight Stellars Jays. I saw a large dark bird in some denser
foliage. And as I was briefly distracted, the female Coopers flew
right past my second-storey window, not five feet in front of me,
carrying a thin, twisty branch (about 10" long) in its beak. And so
the evidence mounts that we have a nesting pair settling in for a
second year in the neighborhood.

If anyone would like to scan my 9.5-hour mp3 recording for bird alarm
calls, I'm happy to share it (you'll need to come pick up a CD copy)
and I can tell you within 10 minutes of where the Frozen Gray
Squirrel incident occurred. A cursory listen definitely reveals some
Crow, Robin, and Chickadee alarms, some Towhee calls (not sure of
their intent), the Jay scoldings, and a distant Pileated Woodpecker.

Never caught anything on the still camera, but the video has a nice
minute-long clip of a motionless Gray Squirrel.

Feels like Animal Kingdom is being shot right outside my bedroom these days :)


Marc Hoffman
Kirkland, WA
http://www.dartfrogmedia.com
mailto: tweeters at dartfrogmedia dot com