[TN-Bird] Mating Cooper's hawks in Oak Ridge (Anderson Co)

From: "Raincrow" <raincrow@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: tn-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Thu, 12 May 2011 09:58:52 -0700
Haven't been on TNbird for awhile but was relieved to see the Gigantic Muddy 
hasn't washed away all of Jeff Wilson's wind birds. But Carole Gobert's account 
of hail-killed herons in Louisville made the hair on the back of my neck stand 
up. I was in Farragut when that storm came through, hiding from hail and 
thanking all known deities as I watched a funnel cloud try and fail to form.
Late last week in Oak Ridge, I saw a sight I've not seen before: copulating and 
displaying Cooper's hawks out in the big grassy field between Illinois Ave. and 
the parking lot of the American Museum of Science & Energy. At first I couldn't 
figure out what I was seeing -- a strangely tall, skinny, dark-colored bird, 
with a bit of a crest on the back of his head, standing in tall grass about 100 
ft away, wibble-wobbling from one side to another for 15-30 seconds. Of course 
my binoculars were in the trunk of the car. Then the tall bird became a bit 
shorter and a second head poked up out of the grass. That's when I realized I 
was watching two tall, skinny birds copulating -- whilst dressed in white poofy 
pantaloons. I started madly thumbing thru Sibley as they strutted and stiffly 
posed for one another, particularly the male. When he spread his tail like a 
tom turkey, I saw the striping and realized I was looking at Cooper's hawks who 
had magnificently, outrageously fluffed their bright white rump and under-tail 
feathers till they resembled gauchos' bombachas. The contrast between the white 
'bombachas' and the dark, tightly closed tail was very striking -- white, dark, 
white, 3 bands almost of the same width (that's how poofed out the white 
feathers were: enough to appear almost the same width as the base of their 
tail). Imagine bending a perfect 90 degrees at the hips so your torso parallel 
is to the ground, then walking on tiptoes. That's the best analogy I have of 
the male's posture, making sure he showed off that white/dark/white under-tail 
display. Four or five times he flew to the closest tree, perched on a branch 
15-20 ft off the ground and give a kek-kek-kek call, bombachas prominently 
fluffed even in flight, then returned to the female in the grass.

Eventually they flew to a more distant tree and I lost sight of them.

I would be very interested in others' accounts of this type of behavior. In my 
continuing ignorance, I never had the faintest idea that hawks engage in such 
elaborate displays.

Good birds to all,

Liz Singley
Kingston, TN (Roane Co.)

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[TN-Bird] Mating Cooper's hawks in Oak Ridge (Anderson Co)

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