[ Birds calling ]
♪♪
-Cooper's hawks are masters at concealment
and stealthy movement without really trying.
They're just hard to see and hard to follow.
Very, very good at what they do.
And the more I study them,
the more respect I have for their ability
to make a living in an urban/suburban environment.
♪♪
The Cooper's hawks evolved as a forest hawk,
and over the last 30 years they have started moving into suburbs
and urban areas all across North America.
They've done so well,
they're the most common hawk in Seattle now,
but also the least seen.
I've always been interested in nature.
Oh, there she goes to the nest.
So I was a member of the Woodland Park Zoo,
and there was a class being offered --
hawk watching in western Washington.
And I said, that looks interesting.
And I signed up for it and it changed the path of my life.
And I ended up spending 17 years studying
the peregrine nesting population in the San Juan Islands.
So that's where I got started.
The founder of
the Cooper's hawk study
did it for nine years,
and he approached Martin Muller and myself
about taking over the study
in 2012, and we fell for it.
And it's been great fun and a lot of work.
There they are. That's her.
This is mid-April,
and what happens is courtship gets more and more serious,
nest building gets more frequent,
and at some point they start laying eggs.
There he goes, up to the nest.
She's in the nest now.
She bumped him out.
So we're about ready for the earliest sites
to lay eggs and start incubating.
And then they become impossible to find
because they're so secretive.
We are trying to find as many nesting pairs as we can
to measure the density of the population in the city.
And it's like the males sometimes say like, "Keek!"
Like, "Honey, watch me. I'm making a nest."
And he'll fly up into the nest
and deposit a stick and make another like, "Keek!"
This is going to be a great nest.
I hope they use it.
♪♪
We started Urban Raptor Conservancy seven years ago
in order to acquire funding to do the rat poison study.
We cast about for funding,
and then Patagonia came to the rescue.
And they have funded our rat poison study completely.
They've been absolutely wonderful.
♪♪
It's right up in this Doug fir.
Yeah, this is another long-standing nesting site
in West Seattle.
[ Birds calling ]
So this nest last year fledged four or five kids.
Big picture for Urban Raptor Conservancy is birds of prey
in the urban habitat --
how do they interact with humans?
We have a group of volunteers
that follow one or several Cooper's hawk nests.
-Last year was my first year as a volunteer.
So I primarily monitor the nests in West Seattle.
You know, they're a silent bird until it's breeding season.
So it's -- it's fun to sort of witness
that secretive forest hawk during a time of year
when you can find them.
-Today is May 20th,
and these birds continue to incubate their eggs.
They should be hatching in the next week or two.
And the male's job is to bring her food periodically
and take over incubating while she eats and takes a rest break.
Cooper's hawks have a very long tail,
and we jokingly refer to that as the telltale tail.
That tells you there's an incubating bird up there.
The females are almost twice the size of a male.
It's one of the biggest differences in raptor species.
It's June 19th.
We've got at least three chicks
who are about halfway through the nestling phase.
Clumsy little white balls of down.
Just starting to show some dark-brown feather growth.
And at five weeks, they'll be full-grown and fully feathered.
The male is off hunting,
and the female is standing guard,
just out of sight of the young,
and she'll come take the food from him,
and then take it up to the nest and feed the young.
♪♪
Yeah, Cooper's hawks love the Seattle park system.
Last year, 40 of the 66 nests were in Seattle parks
and greenbelt properties.
Big nesting trees and lots of prey.
They're not just hunting in the parks where they nest.
They'll also hunt the neighborhoods.
The downside of urban living for Cooper's hawks
are, number one, window hits.
They have not figured out what glass is.
Number two is exposure to rat poison
from eating too many rats.
It's August 1st, and we're in a backyard in West Seattle,
and we're attempting to put ID bands
on some recently fledged juvenile Cooper's hawks.
We got two so far.
The can keeps her calm and keeps her under control.
-All right. We've got one, one, three, four.
-The bands allow us to track how far they migrate
or disperse
and how long they live.
So, this bird has a perfect plumage.
There's no fault bars or signs of stress or hunger strike.
She's in perfect condition.
She'll wear these white tips off in a couple of weeks.
♪♪
Last year we had 66 nesting attempts --
55 were successful --
and 200 fledglings.
♪♪
As we follow the population of Cooper's hawks,
it's essentially tripled in the last 13 years.
So they're thriving right now.
♪♪
Cooper's hawks know
just when you're going to look away for just a second.
And you take your eye off them and poof,
they're gone without a trace.
♪♪
Watch CityStream, Tuesday nights at 7 on the Seattle Channel.
Or find us anytime online at seattlechannel.org