06172016-COHA
This little guy was the lucky one: his nest was blown down and the other three in the nest died. He was in good shape- alert and excellent weight. We believe it is a Cooper's Hawk. But at this age, we have been known to make mistakes in identification! Red-shouldered Hawks and Broadwinged Hawks look very similar at this age. Stay tuned to see if we identified him correctly!
You can see in the photos that he is mostly a white ball of down. He is just beginning to get feathers on his back and tail. He will be housed with another supposed Cooper's Hawk that is fortunately the same age. They are a lot of work at this age as they need to have all their food cut up in small pieces and feed many times a day. We also go to great measures to not imprint the babies. They need to know they are Hawks and not humans! An imprinted bird cannot be released back into the wild. We expect this little guy to make it back into the wild late in the summer or early fall.
I took him to the corner of Lahmeyer Rd. and Trier Rd. When I opened the box to release him, he flew like a champ, changing directions, gaining altitude, and flying into a tree!
06172016-COHA
Yes, he is a Cooper's Hawk! This guy is doing great! He is fully grown and will soon be tested to see if he can catch live prey. We hope to release him in the near future!