Hawks
Harris' Hawks
This is a juvenile Harris' hawk. The hawk has been out of the nest for about one week. It is standing on a limb in one of our courtyards. The fledgling is one of four birds that were hatched in a nest in one of our trees.
As many of you know, Josephine and I have several eucalyptus trees on our property in Tucson, Arizona. One of the largest trees has a hawk's nest in it. The tree is about 150 feet high, and near the top the hawks have built a nest that I would guess is about 4 to 6 feet in diameter and approximately 6 inches deep. Over the last four years that nest has produced a total of 17 hawk fledglings, and all of the young birds have grown to be adults.
The first two nests produced 8 baby Cooper's hawks, the third nest produced 5 Cooper's, and the 4th nest was 4 Harris' hawks. As of 2010 it was still uncertain whether the nest would be occupied again. We had seen a female Cooper's in the area several times, but no confirmed nesting activity yet.
As a result of being privileged to see the hawks up close over the years I have produced two books — the first was about a family of Cooper's hawks and the second was on Harris' hawks.
On the right is an adult Harris' hawk. This hawk's name is Henry, and he is the father of the hawk shown above. The viewer can easily see the difference in coloration between the two hawks — most noticeable on the head, eye, beak, belly, and chest. When young hawks first leave the nest they are usually as large or even larger than their parents, because of the baby fat they accumulate while in the nest where they get very little exercise. As soon as they leave the nest and become more physically active they quickly lose the extra fat and are about the size of their parents. That is why it is easier to identify fledglings by their coloration.
It is usually more than a year before the youngsters get their adult coloration. The favorite food of Harris' hawks is rodents such as ground squirrels, pack rats, kangaroo rats, and antelope squirrels — just about anything that lives on the ground that they can lift aloft and carry to their nest or perch. This includes rabbits, lizards, and even snakes. It would be rare for a Harris' hawk to take a bird. All hawks are carnivores — they are meat eaters.
In this photo I was able to capture Henry — the father of the Harris' hawk family — with a jackrabbit he had just caught, carrying it back to the nestlings.
It is rather unusual for a female to lay four eggs and for the pair of adults to successfully incubate and raise that many babies. Henry spent almost all of his daylight hours hunting for food. I was not able to determine exactly how much food the two adults and four nestlings consumed each day, but I know it was a considerable amount.
To be able to write commentary for a photo book it is necessary to have several hundred high-quality photos to make the photos tell a story. I am sure I took several thousand photos in total. This required me to go out every day for several weeks, then classify the photos so I could find them on my computer. Some of those days the temperature climbed above one hundred degrees — on some days it reached 110. In the end I felt it was worth the effort.
Harris' hawks are a favorite bird that falconers use in their sport. The birds are exceptionally intelligent and superb flyers. Peregrine Falcons are the absolute favorite because of their superior flying skills and speed — they soar higher than most birds and then attack their prey in a steep dive, taking it on the wing. Harris' hawks are beneficial in keeping ground squirrels and other varmints in check.
Cooper's Hawks
The bird shown here is an adult female Cooper's hawk. In the book I wrote about Cooper's hawks, this bird was known as Mrs. Coop. She and her mate Coop were the parents of four nestlings: JR, Molly, Geo, Jo, and Felix.
Josephine and I live in Tucson, Arizona. Our property is fairly close in with regard to the city, however the house was built in the mid-1960s on a lot of at least one acre — as were all the houses in our area, since land was cheap compared to prices today. Many are on even larger lots. This means there is quite a lot of open space, which in turn supports an abundance of native plants, creating a habitat for many kinds of rodents, reptiles, insects, and birds. In other words, a sanctuary within a city of approximately one million people.
Cooper's hawks' favorite food is doves. In our part of Arizona, mourning doves are among the most plentiful of all birds, so there is no shortage of food for the hawks. At one time these hawks were known as "chicken hawks" and because they preyed on a source of food for humans they were hunted almost to extinction. However they are now protected and have recovered quite nicely. For those of you lucky enough to have seen them in their natural habitat, they are beautiful birds.
Cooper's hawks either take birds on the wing or sitting in a tree — they seldom take birds on the ground such as quail or pheasants. Most birds like quail are herbivorous, eating vegetation and seeds, and some drink little or no water, getting their moisture from what they eat. At our home in Tucson we have a water fountain and a stream that run all the time, and in 25 years of living on the property I have never once seen a quail drink from either water source.