Astur cooperii
A couple of months ago, I started seeing the same adult male Cooper’s hawk (Astur cooperii) in the same area at Red Butte Garden & Arboretum. Turns out, he has a nest there! After the weather warmed up and stayed warm, I started seeing fuzzy little heads pop up to look over the side. Those little cotton ball babies eventually grew into three (or four?) beautiful, immature adults. The young birds recently left the nest for the first time! The one featured in this post posed so well for me in one of the oak trees Red Butte is famous for.
The facade of elegance and graceful curiosity is but an illusion, however. As I watched him, a squirrel scrambled across a branch below the young hawk, startling it enough to leave the clutch in a surprised panic. The result is a clumsy jolt of feathers and claws.
mjacophoto.blog 